entrepreneurs currently working on startups as well as adults with full-time jobs who are contemplating making the leap to forming their own company, Keane said. At the end of the four months, students will earn a graduate certificate in entrepreneurship.
“But what they really come out of it with is a much higher … self-reliance and ability to make entrepreneurial decisions that allow them to shape their destinies,” Keane told Xconomy.
Keane said he approached Carroll about the program because the university intends to impact entrepreneurship in southeastern Wisconsin, and he found the university to be a “forward-looking institution that was willing to get behind” the idea.
Carroll has an undergraduate entrepreneurship program, but this new offering marks the first graduate-level entrepreneurship program for the university. The school saw it as an opportunity to “touch a new market” in Milwaukee and boost Carroll’s visibility, provost Joanne Passaro said.
“We’re in the stage of our history where we’re looking to grow our graduate programs and have a bigger impact on the community,” Passaro told Xconomy. “Carroll is the oldest (four-year school) in Wisconsin, and it’s not known as much as it should be.”
Carroll is investing in its business programs, Passaro said. It added an MBA program four years ago and recently created an executive-in-residence program.
Other local universities have also been investing in their entrepreneurship programs in recent years, including University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, which created a Student Startup Challenge and an “App Brewery” that allows students to build mobile applications for outside customers.
