Baylor Wins $50,000 Grant to Develop Internship Program

by Alan Hunt

WACO, Texas - The Kansas City-based Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership Inc. at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation has awarded Baylor University's Hankamer School of Business a $50,000 grant to develop an Entrepreneur Internship Program. Graduate and undergraduate business students interested in either becoming entrepreneurs or knowing more about the entrepreneurship field will participate in the project.
Jay Hardy, director of graduate internships at Hankamer, said Baylor successfully competed against 76 other universities and institutions for the honor. He said the focus of the Kauffman award is to identify up-and-coming companies in Texas that meet the criteria for participation (200 employees or less, $25 million or less in sales), and to match the host company with Hankamer interns who will be required to perform project oriented internships.
Baylor's winning proposal was prepared by Hardy, Dr. Nancy Upton, director of the John F. Baugh Center for Entrepreneurship, and Dr. Don Cunningham, associate dean for graduate programs at Hankamer. The basis for the proposal represented the collaborative efforts of the entrepreneurship center, the Institute for Family Business, undergraduate and graduate programs, and student representatives. Other Baylor participants included the Baylor Alumni Association, the Budget Office and University Relations.
The program will be administered by the business school's Office of Graduate Internships. Undergraduate internships will be coordinated through Robert B. Jones, lecturer in management and entrepreneur-in-residence.
The Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership Inc. was established in 1992 by highly successful entrepreneur, Ewing Marion Kauffman. He built a small pharmaceutical firm into a major health care company with more than $1 billion in sales at the time of its merger with Merrell Dow. The Center, an independent, not-for-profit educational organization, pursues a vision of encouraging entrepreneurship in America.
For more information, call Hardy at (817) 755-3718.