BABSON COLLEGE in Wellesley, Massachusetts, has created the Babson
Academy to provide administrators, faculty, and students from
other universities access to its entrepreneurial training. Launched
in October, the academy will house
all of Babson’s programs aimed at
educators, including its existing
Global Symposia for Entrepreneurship Educators (SEE), as well
as its Fellows Program for Entrepreneurship Educators, which
welcomes approximately 20 select
faculty from universities around
the world for weeklong, immersive
residencies at Babson.
The academy also will house
programs intended for non-Babson
students, such as Babson Build, a
series of one- to three-week immersive experiential programs that
are designed to help undergraduate
and graduate students develop
entrepreneurial mindsets.
“The mission is to provide
access, inspiration, and community
to the university entrepreneurship
education market,” says Heidi
Neck, academic director of the
Babson Academy and the Jeffry A.
Timmons Professor of Entrepreneurial Studies.
One of the academy’s first new
offerings is Heads of Entrepreneurship: Empowering the Educator.
Funded by Santander Universities, a philanthropic division of
Santander Bank that supports
educational endeavors at institutions worldwide, the program helps
university faculty and administrators develop their entrepreneurship
education programming. In February, the academy also will host a
SEE event at its campus in Dubai in
the United Arab Emirates, the first
time it will be held at that location.
In some cases, the school provides faculty with financial support
to attend its training programs.
For example, 40 faculty are invited
each year to attend Babson’s SEE
program in Chile for free. Of those
40, ten are selected to come to Babson as Fellows for a week.
Babson faculty also plan to
create a master entrepreneurship
teacher certification, along with
additional programming on teaching entrepreneurially regardless of
discipline, says Neck. In addition,
the academy will reach out to other
universities through the Babson
Collaborative. As members of this
consortium, universities can share
best practices, co-create programming, and develop and promote
global entrepreneurship education.
Creating the Babson Academy
was a “logical” way for the college
to better coordinate its external
programs, connect with a greater
number of like-minded university
partners—and replicate its model of
entrepreneurial education programming across the globe, says Neck.
“The launch of the academy allows
us to put our portfolio of offerings
under one roof,” she says. “We want
to inspire educators and their students to view entrepreneurship as a
life skill to navigate uncertainty and
develop the courage to act.”
Learn more about joining
the Babson Collaborative.