Priorities:University of Chicago Student Priorities

Overview

The University of Chicago is currently in the process of expanding and refining its entrepreneurial ecosystem, and there have been numerous exciting developments in the recent year. In order to further this growth as students, we have devised a "bottom-up" approach, in constrast to the university's "top-down" approach of building infrastructure and implementing major changes, that takes into account the needs and expectations of the student body. Below we indicate major priorities for our university in improving its entrepreneurial ecosystem, which we believe will yield many long-term benefits.

In our analysis of the various innovation and entrepreneurship (I&E) resources available to members of the university, we noted two major areas for improvement: introducing students of all disciplines to the importance and relevance of I&E, and providing the appropriate resources to help students work on entrepreneurial projects in their domain of interest. Programming and resources that address these needs already exist for graduate students and faculty members, but they do not yet for undergraduate students. We believe that such changes in the I&E ecosystem can be accomplished within the reasonable time span of one to three years because they already do for other members of the university.

Goal 1: Expose students to the importance and value of I&E

In our conversations with members of the student body from different backgrounds and academic disciplines, we uncovered a common theme: students generally do not understand the relevance of entrepreneurship to their professional interests. Some students remarked that the I&E programs and events offered by the university are often "self-selecting" in that the students who participate in such programs are more often than not in these programs because they have already built up an interest in entrepreneurship and are not participating in these offerings to explore entrepreneurship. This self-selection leads to the I&E ecosystem consisting largely of students in areas like economics and computer science and ultimately shapes the programming to be more directed to the interests of members of these segments of the student body.