2008 Woodie Awards
Hogan's New Venture Lab teaches business lessons
Allison Ferré
Issue date: 4/5/07 Section: News
- Page 1 of 2 next >
The number of students admitted to the Hogan Entrepreneurial Leadership Program has remained constant since the Hogan Family Foundation Inc. signed the check creatomg the program in 2000, but the Gonzaga program is also working to extend entrepreneurial opportunities to non-Hogan students.
"We can only accept 25 students into the actual Hogan Program," said Thomas Tilford, program director. "But there is still an obligation to provide opportunities for the students who either didn't apply or weren't accepted."
Norm Leatha, assistant director, described the program's structure with two threads: academic and co-curricular. The New Venture Lab (NVL) was launched in 2004 and has grown into the largest component of the co-curricular thread.
The program was built from Leatha's proposal to create a student-run consulting business on-campus that had a lab environment. Applications for a start-up can be submitted by students or businesses. Tilford estimates that for every three applications submitted, the student teams will take on one as consultants.
The decision of which proposals to take on is based on two criteria, said Leatha. First, whether students can learn from working on the project; and second, whether the entrepreneurs are coachable so that students' ideas will not be "thrown in the wastebasket."
The NVL is run by the Hogan program, but not limited to students in the program. It welcomes participation from all students in all majors, said Tilford.
According to Michael Sass, a member of the NVL Leadership Team, about half of the students currently working on projects in NVL are not Hogan students.
"The mix of students working in NVL is beneficial because different projects require different skills," said Sass. "It helps to have students with engineering majors and students with business majors take both aspects and produce a full product in the end."
The NVL is also unique because of the dynamic environment it offers students.
"We can only accept 25 students into the actual Hogan Program," said Thomas Tilford, program director. "But there is still an obligation to provide opportunities for the students who either didn't apply or weren't accepted."
Norm Leatha, assistant director, described the program's structure with two threads: academic and co-curricular. The New Venture Lab (NVL) was launched in 2004 and has grown into the largest component of the co-curricular thread.
The program was built from Leatha's proposal to create a student-run consulting business on-campus that had a lab environment. Applications for a start-up can be submitted by students or businesses. Tilford estimates that for every three applications submitted, the student teams will take on one as consultants.
The decision of which proposals to take on is based on two criteria, said Leatha. First, whether students can learn from working on the project; and second, whether the entrepreneurs are coachable so that students' ideas will not be "thrown in the wastebasket."
The NVL is run by the Hogan program, but not limited to students in the program. It welcomes participation from all students in all majors, said Tilford.
According to Michael Sass, a member of the NVL Leadership Team, about half of the students currently working on projects in NVL are not Hogan students.
"The mix of students working in NVL is beneficial because different projects require different skills," said Sass. "It helps to have students with engineering majors and students with business majors take both aspects and produce a full product in the end."
The NVL is also unique because of the dynamic environment it offers students.