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March 3, 2011 • Page 10
“We don’t even know what the scope or depth of what it could mean yet until we get into it and people start telling us what it’s meant to them...”
Journey
to the center of
Entrepreneurship By Nick Schrager RaiderView Staff
T
he recession ended two years ago but many jobs have been lost—possibly forever—all over the country. According to The United States Department of Labor, the current unemployment rate stands at a firm nine percent. In an undisclosed room in the Turner Building, preparations are being made by Linda Grider, Dan Koger, Norm Miller, Steven Gordon and Al Eferstein to change this. Laughter unfolds from time to time as the talks grind about cost, resources and the region. The plan? To create a program that will both educate and train entrepreneurial leaders within the community. Its title? Build your own job. Lindsey Wilson College (LWC) is reaching out to the community by sponsoring an eight-part series of lectures held at The Pines golf course in Columbia. The lectures range from how to prepare a business and market plan to staffing to accounting as well as business law and communications. The cost to attend? Free. “We’re trying in The Center for Entre-
preneurship to provide training and education for entrepreneurs at the college and in the community,” Linda Grider, the Director of Community Outreach and the team leader for The Center of Entrepreneurship team, said. The program started over a year ago as a seed that turned into the sapling that is here today. “By attending seminars, people will learn the phases of starting, organizing and operating a business,” Grider said. But the education goes both ways according to Koger, an Associate Professor of Communications at LWC. “I’d like to look at it as that we’re learning from each other [The Center for Entrepreneurship and the community].” According to Koger, this opportunity gives the school the chance to apply what is learned in the classroom in a real-world setting. Doing so allows students to see their knowledge in a different light. “There’s a place for lecture and there’s a place for textbooks but there’s an enormous place for what the community can teach us,” Koger said. Koger said that both sides possess knowledge that the other does not have. “We can learn from them and they can learn from us… from an economic standpoint, this is an expensive resource sitting up here and society has chosen to spend its
Dan Koger (left) and Linda Grider plan lectures for the eight-week series on entrepreneurship. Photos by Nick Schrager. resources for this institution to exist… we owe the people…” Koger said. All of this needs to be organized however, and Koger said it is coming in the form of lectures. The series of lectures is open not only to students who are majoring in business, but anyone who is interested in attending. According to Grider, whether you will be graduating this year or next, the seminars will help students (and anyone else
in attendance) gain knowledge of how a business works and that the knowledge acquired from attendance will help them down the line. “…it will give them the competitive edge,” Grider said. For students who have ideas for a business that is not yet established and would like to know more about how to start one, these seminars will give them the understanding and chance to explore their options. “They’re going to learn to prepare a business plan, then they’re going to learn how to market… then ‘how am I going to fund it?’” Grider said. Students from Grider’s Compensation and Benefits class will give a lecture about core concepts they have learned in class on May 11th. “We want people to come and be a part of the whole series,” Grider said. The schedule for the program is set to run through June where it will pause for the summer months before resuming in the upcoming fall semester. “We don’t even know what the scope or depth of what it could mean yet until we get into it and people start telling us what it’s meant to them,” Grider said. There are big plans going on in The Center for Entrepreneurship and time will tell what is to come, but for now, it is just business as usual.
DESK ART: Expression from caves to classrooms COMMENTARY By Amie Dockery Back Page Editor
I
n the era of social networking, not only do we insist on staying connected via the Internet, but we also stay connected through writing. We still use this primitive form of communication not only to write love letters, but to display the same information we display online. Just as cavemen spared the lives of trees by writing on the rock walls of caves, we spare the lives of trees by writing on desks. In almost all classrooms words have been carved, smeared, and even inked to state information that must date back to previous generations of Lindsey Wilson students, for much of the subjects being talked about seem almost nonexistent, with the exception of what is written or drawn about professors. In Slider, a desk illustrates Tip Shanklin, an English professor. In many classrooms the outing of past students or who was there is what is most prominent. For most this seems to be an immature action, one that is displayed by middle
school children who still think it is cool to stick chewed gum under the desk. Yet, why do we feel the need to write and draw pictures as college students? None of us would dare write the answers to homework on the desk (mostly due to being accused of cheating), so running out of paper is not a legitimate reason. Why did the caveman truly draw himself hunting animals? He could not have possibly known that future generations would find the drawings and realize he was there, for he never wrote “______” was here on the walls. He was probably just expressing what was going on in his daily life just as we do on websites such as Facebook and Twitter. Just as those websites are used for expression, they are also used as sources of entertainment. As harsh as it sounds it is true. The same is also true for all the “status” updates that are written on the desks. The words are mocked, the faceless people judged. The legacy of what was once written will live on. The humor we find in reading the past is pointed out to others, because who can really avoid the grey pencil markings that come together, forming words and illustrating what we believe to be the past?
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Desktops in Slider 300 have a variety of creative expression, including this rendition of Associate Professor of English Tip Shanklin. Photo by Brandon Girdley.