Entrepreneurial Leadership Initiative (ELI)

HLP is delighted to announce that Christopher Gergen will succeed Tony Brown in teaching Entrepreneurial Leadership (PPS144s) this coming academic year.

Christopher Gergen is a Founding Partner of New Mountain Ventures, an entrepreneurial consulting and leadership development firm, and co-author of the forthcoming book, Life Entrepreneurs: Extraordinary People Creating Extraordinary Lives (expected March, 2008 by Jossey-Bass). Christopher is also the co-founder and Chairman of SMARTHINKING, the largest online tutoring provider in the country serving over 1,000 universities and high schools.

New Mountain Ventures works with organizations at nearly all levels--from high schools and universities to executive education programs--to train participants in the art of entrepreneurial leadership. NMV has created a leadership development program that builds entrepreneurial capacity in high-growth organizations and leadership teams.

Mr. Gergen's degrees include a B.A. from Duke University, a Master's in Public Policy from George Washington University, and an MBA from Georgetown University.

For more information, see Christopher's profile.

An innovative spirit has always been important to progress in our society. Entrepreneurial leaders create new projects and lead change in organizations and communities. While they may not hold formal leadership positions, they make things happen. These leaders have a clear and compelling vision of what they want to accomplish, possess effective leadership skills and management savvy, and are emotionally engaged in their work. Above all, they embrace innovation as a way of life.

Active college students need support in learning to identify their passions, transform new ideas into compelling plans, and effectively implement them. The mission of the Entrepreneurial Leadership Initiative is to engage, educate and empower Duke University students to pursue innovative solutions to community and global problems with vision, passion, capability, and competence. The Incubator provides invaluable support during the process of creating sustainable change.

ELI complements the Hart Leadership Program's emphasis on integrating academic coursework, experiential learning, and close mentoring. While open to all undergraduates, ELI will particularly appeal to Hart Leadership Program students who may have developed an initial venture idea as part of a class-based field project, a summer internship, a community volunteer activity, or a leadership position on campus.

An outline of ELI's programmatic offerings are offered below:

ELI'S Timeline

The ELI Edge

Deep, sustainable impact in Durham :
The proposed ELI program will allow students to have deep, sustaintable impact in Durham. By exposing students to the intellectual foundations of social entrepreneurship and action research from the field, students will develop more effective and sustainable social enterprises. By immersing them in the Durham community through a summer internship, students will develop a richer understanding of the issues facing the city, more fully appreciate the complexities of working in the public and social sectors, and build social networks and partners for their social enterprises. By providing students with a full semester to develop a business plan and pilot their enterprise, students will be better equipped to move forward with their projects and have a lasting impact on the Durham community. And by launching a post-graduate fellowship, students will have the opportunity to see their enterprises to scale and ensure leadership and financial sustainability.

Developmental sequence:
The proposed ELI program will provide students with the opportunity to progressively deepen their engagement with social entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial leadership. By introducing students first to the theory, then immersing them in the practice, and finally asking them to integrate the concepts, students will fully develop their entrepreneurial leadership capacity. Under the old structure, students were asked to simultaneously become intellectually engaged with the principles and practices of social entrepreneurship AND become an active social entrepreneur in one semester. As a result, many students were forced to give short shrift to the more academic and theoretical parts of the course in favor of more practical concepts. They also were so busy planning their ventures that they were unable to critically reflect on the experience. The new ELI program will ensure sufficient opportunity to thoughtfully engage the theory and applied research from the field and reflect on their entrepreneurial life path.

Integration of theory and practice:
Many social entrepreneurship programs focus on either the theoretical or practical elements of the subject matter. But educational psychology suggests that the integration of the two domains is the most effective means of learning. The proposed ELI program will offer students the unique opportunity to integrate the theory and practice in a liberal arts setting. Rather than having one faculty member with a research focus and another faculty member with a more applied background, the proposed ELI program will have faculty members with professional experience as social entrepreneurs and research interests in the field. Additionally, a comprehensive co-curricular program in the summer will introduce students to many of the leading practioners in the social entrepreneurship field.