Fostering Innovation at UT
From left, Ray Bowen, Rex Tillerson, and Michael Brown.
Last week I attended a forum on the research mission of universities sponsored by The Academy of Medicine, Engineering and Science of Texas. The forum included an impressive group of panelists: David Booth, chairman of Dimensional Fund Advisors; Ray Bowen, chairman of the National Science Board (and former president of Texas A&M); Michael Brown, Nobel Laureate and faculty member at UT Southwestern Medical Center; David Daniel, president of UT Dallas; UT’s Tinsley Oden, associate VP for research; and UT alumnus Rex Tillerson, chairman and CEO of ExxonMobil. Larry Faulkner, president of the Houston Endowment and former president of UT, moderated the panel. Collaboration between research universities and the private sector was discussed, and I’d like to expand on UT Austin’s efforts in fostering innovation—both here and around the globe.
At UT, we collaborate with private companies every day. For example, UT’s Austin Technology Incubator (ATI) helps innovative start-up companies from Texas and around the world become successful. ATI, led by Director Isaac Barchas, surrounds early-stage companies with talent that they often cannot afford to buy. UT offers access to mentors in the technology community, including entrepreneurs, faculty researchers, legal and accounting professionals, and investors. In return, UT provides unique learning and research opportunities for our students and faculty. UT also receives a small equity interest in the companies.
In fact, it was recently announced that Xeris Pharmaceuticals of California is relocating to Austin in order to join ATI. Xeris, which is developing products to treat endocrine diseases such as diabetes, was attracted by Austin’s entrepreneurial culture and UT’s resources in the life sciences and biotechnology.
Xeris joins nine companies that have relocated to Austin to join ATI during the past two years. They come from California, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, North Carolina, Australia, India, and South Korea. ATI has worked with about 50 companies during the last three years, helping them to raise $75 million to launch and expand. Of course, not all these companies will stay in Texas and not all will survive, but so far, ATI-affiliated companies have a remarkable record of success.
Bringing innovative companies to campus is good for our students, our faculty, and for the Texas economy. When these companies succeed, they employ our graduates, sponsor faculty research projects, generate revenue for UT, and develop products that benefit society.
President Powers –
Let me echo Rick Cherwitz’s comment about tech transfer. Though ATI and their successes should certainly be celebrated, we must remember that universities are purposed to engage in “Intellectual Transfer.” Indeed the public is continuously lured into new forms of digital personalization and I wonder if our penchant for “technology transfer” in higher education might be similar.
Though every unit on the forty acres meets their educational mission, we forget the disciplines that may not prove as attractive as those who can participate in tech transfer, provides the context with which technology is generated, marketed and consumed. Sociologists, marketing professionals, architects, artists and even philosophers (to name but a few) are as crucial to tech transfer as the PCL is to every student on campus.
President Powers, let me suggest the following: Perhaps UT could lead a parallel conference that identifies the “Intellectual Transfer” that UT provides to the city, state and country. This could engage the entire campus (including ATI) and give each discipline an opportunity to demonstrate the impact they generate each and every day.
I’m sure we would both agree that the whole is far, far greater than the sum of its parts – and I believe it is time for each discipline on campus to start publicly identifying the contribution they make to the landscape of American life. UT is poised – and long overdue – to make such a statement.
In the ten years I was a core part of the IE Consortium, directing The Project in Interpreting the Texas Past at the University of Texas, my students and I developed an approach to civic engagement, innovation, and social entrepreneurship that was tremendously effective and lies at the heart of the IE philosophy. We began by connecting graduate students with historic sites and museums throughout the state of Texas to ask how we could work with them, and with the communities where they were located, to create more diverse, inclusive and nuanced interpretations of the past. For the first time many sites told the stories of people of color, of women, and of working people; for the first time these communities were actively engaged in thinking about and interpreting their past; for the first time students, museum staff, and community groups worked together to create exhibits, films and other insightful representations of the past. Later the project expanded its mission to ask a slightly broader question, again in deep harmony with IE: how can we use our intellectual and creative talents to address pressing social and cultural issues? Instead of focusing exclusively on historic sites, we went to a variety of institutions to ask how we, at the University, could assist them. One notable project was a culturally sensitive cookbook for diabetic Mexican Americans, which combined traditional recipes from Mexico with low cholesterol, sugar free ingredients. Two UT graduate students worked with the People’s Community Clinic and with Mexican American diabetics to create the sample cookbook. This is the kind of thinking that IE promotes, and which results in innovative work by faculty, staff and students. This is the kind of thinking that starts at the University, embraces the knowledge of local communities, and does change the world, one project at a time.
President Powers:
I want to offer my support for the I.E. program my friend Rick Cherwitz has developoed at UT-Austin and especially for the claims he makes with respect to how I.E. can help make a research based university more relevant in the “real world.” Having been both an “acadamic” at UT-Austin (Ph.D. 1985) and a law student (J.D. 1985), I am certainly sensitive to the need to blend the best of the academy with the practical. As UT Dean of the College of Commuication Rod Hart was fond of telling me while I was in school, “Nothing is so practical as good theory.” I.E., as Rick has developed that program at UT, seems the best embodiment of that idea I’ve come across.
I also take note of the success the I.E. program has had in attracting first generation college students to graduate school, especially ethnic minorities. I was fortunate in having parental role models who had been to college and graduate school, but I am quite aware many other minority students with whom I studied, both in graduate school and law school, had not. Given the University’s historic concern with this issue, the ability of the I.E. program to facilitate increased graduate school enrollment among first generation college students, and especially among minority group members, is especially encouraging.
Finally, I want to say how much I think the I.E. effort can add for students who choose to work in business and the professions, as I have. The broadbased approach to learning that the I.E. program uses, seems especially well suited for preparing students to cope with the wide range of challenges faced by business people, lawyers, corporate managers, and researchers as we tackle the business issues of today.
Rob Wiley
Stewart & Wiley PLLC
2203 Timberloch Place #126
The Woodlands, TX 77380
281/367-8007 (telephone)
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robwiley@stewartwiley.com
http://www.stewartwiley.law.com
President Powers:
I agree with the comments made by Professor Cherwitz and have been impressed by his leadership and the IE program and consortium. We need more such programs integrated across the entire spectrum of the commercialization of university research.
This past Memorial Day Weekend, I addressed such matters from one perspective in an article published in the Austin American Statesman, Sunday addition. I have also published an ebook entitled “Go Forth and Innovate!” and host a weekly blog on the topic at goforthandinnovate.blogspot.com. As the former Vice Chancellor for Research and Technology Transfer at UT System and now a retired professor, my personal belief is that innovation and entrepreneurship are essential to economic prosperity in America. As a citizen of Austin, I applaud the efforts of UT Austin to be a world leader in research in all the disciplines as well as a leader in the commercialization of that research.
President Powers,
Thank you for highlighting the collaboration between UT -Austin and the private sector through the Austin Technology Incubator (ATI) partnership. A project that matches start up companies with the talent and the mentors from UT-Austin makes so much sense, in economic and educational terms, and it does ultimately benefit society. This partnership is one example of the types of innovative collaborations that the I.E. program is already creating within the university at UT-A.
The I.E. program benefits all the constituents of the university but, moreover, it benefits students the most. The I.E.’s commitments speak to “creating innovators and agents of change”, along with ” encouraging genuine reform in higher education.” There is an emphasis on ” increasing communication within and between organizations that result in a productive, passionate and resilient workforce.”
There is so much talk these days of “productivity” in higher education and of finding “solutions” for it. However, there is much positive work being done at our public research universities and the I. E. program at UT -Austin is one such success. I. E. develops college and career counseling to a higher, more effective level in that it starts undergraduates off on their right track early on in their educational careers. It is also a program that can be replicated to scale and one that can make a significant difference in higher education policy and outcomes.
The I.E. pre-grad internship program, for example, focuses on each student’s interests and talents and matches them with learning and research opportunities, pairing them with mentors within the university. The program utilizes “interviews, surveys and self-reporting data” with students to help them chart their own educational path. In a panel discussion about I.E., Dr. Cherwitz said, ” We’ve created this space for them [our students] to discover what they want to do with their lives, not just a template of, ‘Here’s what you need for graduate school.’…Here’s a space where you figure out what you want to do, what the culture of graduate school might be, and how you could contribute to an academic or nonacademic community.”
In terms of numbers, the I.E. program produces tangible results. According to data provided by Dr. Cherwitz in the aforementioned panel discussion, “Fifty to fifty-five percent of the students enrolled in the I.E. pre-grad internship program are students who are under represented minorities, either Latino, Native American or African Americans, or first generation students to attend college. At UT-Austin, only twelve percent of graduate students are Hispanic or African American, while fifteen percent of undergraduates are Hispanic and four to five percent are African American.” The data shows “more than a doubling of those under represented populations within the I.E. pre-grad internship. It is not by chance.”
The I.E. program at UT is driven by an innovative vision of education, one that “educates citizen-scholars” and looks to “provide real solutions to society’s problems”. Congratulations to the all the faculty, administrators, and students who have committed their time, talent, and energy to help develop such an outstanding program in higher education.
As a recent graduate from UT (Plan II/English Honors), I am more than pleased to see President Powers’s relentless support of research and partnership with start-up and thriving companies. The nexus between the worlds of scholarship and business is what perpetuates the value of our degree as UT students have the opportunity to do original work with those who have the resources to implement that work. It is a symbiotic relationship that speaks to the value of education and research. When students are given an opportunity to put how they think and what they research to work in the business world, they demonstrate the practical dimension of their studies. Collaboration is a necessary element of scholarship, one that increases the value of our degrees and improves the prospects of our graduates. Thank you, President Powers, for keeping our values as a university at the forefront of every decision.
President Powers,
With innovation running through and around the UT campus, it is critical for students to make the connection with these opportunities, especially the freshman and sophomores. To make this type of bond and foster relationships that will not only promote and gather interest from our undergraduates, but also give insight for their future entails having a foundation through the IE Consortium. The IE mission and vision allow for students to have hands-on type of experience in their field of interest and explore the applications. This is where the classroom meets the practice in their field.
It is essential for students to have this experience as early as possible to start tapping into their resources on campus and extend to summer internships and beyond. Creating a dynamic and supportive network allows students to take advantage of their resources and hopefully connect other students with similar opportunities. By placing the student in a diverse setting amongst other students that are interested in their future and learning how to get there definitely creates a much more exciting environment.
I found it was very important for students to not only utilize the IE Pre-Graduate Internship as a means to learn about their own passion, but to pass this invaluable opportunity to other students across the 40 acres. By creating IE Citizen-Scholars, a group of IE alumni, it allows for previous IE interns to connect with future IE students in their respective fields of interest. This creates a sustainable and efficient method for students that is right on campus. As we continue fostering the growth of innovation here at UT and our Austin affiliates, it is essential to spark the youth with innovation via the IE Consortium and other research resources for students to develop a drive and passion in innovation and the betterment of society that will be passed on to future generations.
The article states: “Bringing innovative companies to campus is good for our students, our faculty, and for the Texas economy. When these companies succeed, they employ our graduates, sponsor faculty research projects, generate revenue for UT, and develop products that benefit society.”
For the university, the main “product” that we want to develop that will benefit society is the STUDENT. You see, developing INNOVATION and ENTREPRENURIAL THINKING from within the campus is also good for our students, our faculty, and the Texas economy. As a business major both undergrad (UT’84) and grad, I definitely think collaborating with innovative companies is great and as the article states, it would help “UT provide unique learning and research opportunities for our students.” But let’s hold our horses here (yes I’m a Texan!). I seem to remember that in the classic Movie “The Wizard of Oz”, the main characters spent the whole film seeking something from “the wizard” that they ALREADY possessed within. The same may apply to UT. There is a program on campus called the “Intellectual Entrepreneurship Consortium (IE)” led by Dr. Richard Cherwitz that also provides unique learning and research opportunities for UT students. To me, this program is gold mine of opportunity already on campus just waiting to be “discovered”! We may already possess what we’re looking for….
Definitely seek partnerships and collaborations with outside firms to benefit our students, but let’s also utilize, publicize, and support the treasures that we already possess on campus that benefit our students. Innovation is already being fostered at UT…we just gotta know where to look!
President Powers,
I am delighted that you promote innovation at UT and foster an environment that allows UT students to collaborate with outside companies but I was perplexed as to why you didn’t mention the Intellectual Entrepreneurship Consortium. I am aware of the Austin Technology Incubator but the Intellectual Entrepreneurship Consortium also provides “unique learning and research opportunities for our students and faculty.”
The Intellectual Entrepreneurship Consortium’s mission is to create Citizen-Scholars through Discovery, Ownership and Accountability. It was through IE that I DISCOVERED my passion for philanthropy, took OWNERSHIP of that passion by pursuing a degree in Sociology and I have held myself ACCOUNTABLE by making it my mission to research funding opportunities for IE.
I created the IE Facebook fan page just over a year ago. We now have 3,284 fans world wide. Those are people who support the Intellectual Entrepreneurship Consortium and UT. With all due respect, to fail to mention this innovative and far-reaching program would be a serious oversight.
I am a “non-traditional” student. I will finish my BA in Sociology with a minor in Religious Studies in August at the age of FIFTY!!!! I participated in the Pre-Grad Internship program last Spring and was able to narrow my focus and figure out that yes, I need to go to graduate school in order to accomplish my academic goals. I would have had a harder time doing that without having participated in the program.
Please see my IE video for a more in-depth look at my IE experience.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zbd2tXCOIEU
I think it is wonderful that you support innovation but please be aware that there is more than one way to skin a cat and the Intellectual Entrepreneurship Consortium is another valuable tool available to all Longhorns.
Hook ‘em!!!
Aida A. Cerda-Prazak
President Powers,
Research has become a hot-button issue around campus lately. Whether it is adamant support or a dissenting opinion, the views on the benefits of research are clearly polarized: There is no middle-ground. Your blog entry eloquently outlines the benefits of an institution well-rooted in research. The benefits are enormous and permeate all sectors of the university. Under the ‘research’ debate, many have began to discuss the real-world value that research brings; the central argument of those starkly opposed revolves around the utility of research: “There are 21, 674 articles on Shakespeare. Do we need the 21, 675th?” But what the opposition has failed to see — as you mention — is that research, in conjuncture with programs such as Austin Technology Incubator (ATI), provide a variety of ample opportunities for students, professors, the UT campus, and the city of Austin as a whole. Your support for ATI and the like clearly supports ‘fostering innovation at UT.’ However, the type of innovation promoted by the Intellectual Entrepreneurship (IE) program has gone unnoticed. The IE program works diligently with students — those with an intellectually inclined entrepreneurial fervor — to provide them with the opportunity to grow within the sphere of the UT campus as preparation for their growth and work done outside of the UT campus. Like ATI, the IE program takes notice of ‘innovative’ students and helps them become ‘successful.’ The two programs are proverbial mirror-images; their only difference is they occupy two differing sectors of the University. To only acknowledge and support one would be entirely detrimental to the overall support and promotion of research. Therefore, more emphasis is needed on the two. To foster research — that based outside of UT Austin (embodied by external companies), and that based within UT Austin (embodied through the IE program) is to foster pure, unadulterated research.
President Powers:
Professor Cherwitz’ remarks cannot be overemphasized and we disregard them at our peril. To the degree that entrepreneurship is calculated only–or even predominantly–as an economic parameter, we run the risk that an important generator of innovation, namely, intellectual entrepreneurship, will be both ignored and devalued. As we are finding at the University of Central Arkansas, the most exciting and rewarding innovations, both in thinking and in resultant technologies, obtain when students and faculty from diverse disciplines work collaboratively and strive to escape the “silo mentality” that has been plaguing universities since the Middle Ages. Similarly, we are finding more and more that innovation is most likely to be achieved by citizen-scholars who are armed with a diversified intellectual portfolio that permits them to cross traditional disciplinary boundaries (as well as operate in the margins between disciplines). This is not, to be clear, the “old” notion of inter-disicplinarity–it is trans-disciplinarity (the former preserves the same disciplinary barriers alluded to above). Thus, while I continue to be impressed by my alma mater’s efforts–your efforts–to couple productively with business and industry, that coupling must include more than ATI-like initiatives that help embryonic companies raise money and take advantage of the efficiencies a great research institution can provide. It must include as well a cadre of citizen-scholars of the sort produced by UT’s Intellectual Entrepreneurship Consortium–scholars who are just as well equipped to assay the social, ethical, and environmental possibilities of innovation as they are its economic potential. Professor Cherwitz has illustrated the points I am making, not so much in discourse or through argument, but in the kinds of students his IE program at UT has produced (and their achievements) over the past decade and more. Solving the great issues of our day demand that we pay close attention, not only to the “bottom line” economic interests of innovative companies, but to the more holistic, “bottom line” social interests of stakeholders and communities, within whose larger context such companies operate. That is a goal only intellectual entrepreneurs can achieve.
I could not agree more with all of the ideas expressed here, especially Dr. Cherwitz’s comments about the IE program and its impact. While innovation in business and technology certainly is important, I do not think that the value of higher education is always measurable in terms of “the bottom-line.”
Instead, we must also consider the long-term outcomes and changes that occur as a result of students pursuing higher education at public research universities such as UT. This is particularly relevant when regarding the potential impact that students, such as those in the IE program, will have on solving some of the most difficult “real-world” challenges that we face as a global society which will require new ways of thinking, innovative strategies, and an ability to apply what they have learned to solving these issues. Because IE equips students with the crucial creative problem-solving and critical thinking skills that will prepare them for their roles as future leaders, whether in the private or public sector, I strongly believe that UT should continue to support its efforts because it is what helps to foster the university’s excellent reputation and contribution to our global society.
Carlnita P. Greene, Ph.D. (UT Class of 2006)
I want to echo the echoes–Professor Cherwitz’ understanding of innovation pushes beyond the bounds of what most institutions are doing in order to enable students to be agents. German philosopher Jurgen Habermas notes the difference between “citoyens” (citizens) and “hommes” (men)–the first act, the second are acted upon. Innovation requires actors, but actors with a foundation in knowledge. The only way that what starts at UT changes the world is if students are equipped to approach the world’s problems thoughtfully and intentionally–innovative programs like Intellectual Entrepreneurship enhance UT’s ability to deliver on those goals.
Anna M. “Amy” Young (MA ’03, Ph.D. ’07)
President Powers,
I am pleased to note your enthusiasm and commitment to facilitating innovation at the University of Texas. As Prof. Cherwitz writes, however, initiatives toward this end ought to reach for much more than a relationship with entrepreneurs, when these are defined strictly according to the corporate model.
Entrepreneurship can productively be thought of as mobilized expertise; the University’s greatest resource is its intellectual capital.
I encourage you and the administration to think of innovation broadly as scholars’ and students’ aggressive, strategic, and enduring engagement with social, political, economic, and/or environmental exigencies. When this engagement is grounded in, and informed by scholars’ research and students’ curricula, its potential payoff is unknown.
This unknown, I submit, will be the real innovation. Wouldn’t it be more exciting, not to mention more effective, even profitable, to support innovation the specifics of which you have not yet conceived? Restricting the university’s approach to innovation strictly to developing relationships with business, would be regrettable. These relationships are, to be sure, worthwhile. But let not this form of innovation be the only one for which faculty, students, and staff are institutionally recognized and rewarded.
Be well!
E. Johanna Hartelius
Assistant Professor
Department of Communication
Northern Illinois University
DeKalb, Illinois 60115-2854
As a UT graduate (and student of his), I think Rick Cherwitz has this exactly right. UT is a great university, and important to the state of Texas, because it develops _human capital_. Prof. Cherwitz has pioneered an exceptional, nationally-recognized program that brings the spirit of entrepreneurship to students and their ideas, skills and research. The ability of UT graduates to drive the economy of the state of Texas depends on the ability of UT to maximize the potential of _all_ students.
One example I might site since I have a moment in how IE prepares students in a unique way is Justin Jefferson. I think his example is one that shows value in this specific area of research/development.
Justin was one of the students involved in IE, who spoke at the University wide commencement events at his recent graduation. He was able to specifically engage with graduate students in the sciences, in a manner that provided great value to UT’s efforts in this area, while at the same time helping grow him as a student leader, and gain great value for his long-term career.
As one of Cherwitz’ citizon scholars, Justtn recently connected to me as a community mentor. Justin has a degree in biology and was pre-med. He is trying to determine his future with medicial schools, and where he might want to focus – either ER or surgery. As a student without overwhelming medical contacts, I (a doctor’s kid) am helping him connect to some good people including Dr. Guerrero (a leader at TMA and an ER physician from San Antonio).
In addition, I am getting Justin to assist in efforts of the Sepsis Alliance on sepsis education, which is a leading drain on health care costs when sepsis is missed – leading to large hospital bills, long-term disability for survivors, and a high death rate. If there is a health care debate in this country, sepsis is a factor that can affect the bottom line of its future. Justin is engaging in efforts to help me address that, which will also help him develop good contacts in the medical community for his intended goals of ER/surgery.
It is true that any student might theoretically be able to do similar things without IE, but what I have noticed is that students who were not prepared by Dr. Cherwitz and IE … don’t seem to get those skill sets as well. Dr. Cherwitz’ students are ready to go even before graduation to reach into the community and bring leadership and talent to the society where they find themselves.
With Justin, we might be seeing one of the great leaders emerging in emergency medicine. I am sure other similar examples can be shown as evidence for engineering, computer science, etc. What Dr. Cherwitz gets is that one of the most valuable assets a university has is the human capital. He is growing such leaders in large numbers.
Prof. Cherwitz certainly makes an excellent point! My experience as an IE intern within the UT School of Law has without a doubt been an amazing and formative experience. The IE program has such a unique ability to teach outside of the didactic classroom model. It lends itself extremely well to allowing students see the real world impact of the ideas and skills once they are taken out of the tower and into the rest of world. What I have learned and continue to learn at UT has the potential to make our world a more fair and just one.
As somebody attempting to act as one of the changes agents working towards K12 innovation, I feel I must strongly support both this fine debate and specifically what Professor Cherwitz is advocating in terms of what I personally like to call, a little more provocatively: “collaborate or else”. The “else” part is none too pretty. What we need in Texas and beyond for these United States is a change in the TIDE, the Transformational Interactive Dashboard for Engagement, in the flow of funding and empowerment of all participants (parents, teachers, children, administrators, legislators and so forth). We need to see clearly in one picture, if you will, empowered by technology and our human ingenuity, the collective way forward in this 21st century to transform, not simply reform, education and thereby the economy of our ailing nation.
I actually strongly agree with Dr. Cherwitz’s point. The blog itself identifies the issue by referring to “mentors” and alludes to the connection of students to these. To ensure that UT-Austin gets the most value, though, then it definitely should support connecting IE in this function since it has the best experience of overseeing such mentor relationships.
IE sees that part of the value of higher ed is the development of the leaders/students themselves. The service academies such as West Point see that what they are doing is developing leaders, and UT-Austin is doing much the same thing in IE. These students don’t just memorize answers for an exam, but develop interactive relationships with mentors and faculty to develop creative and innovative processes that lead to solutions to problems. If UT-Austin wants to get as much value out of these relationships as possible, it should fully deploy IE along side them.
What Dr. Cherwitz has received great praise from such individuals as Pres. Yudof is that this is a great way to improve higher ed. The new world brings new and increasingly sophisticated problems, and IE provides the method of finding more innovative solutions. It allows students to be at the cutting edge of these issues and learn how to lead problem solving. It can magnify the value of these relationships tremendously.
While the language can be just that, as you yourself trained me in Law School, but what Dr. Cherwitz shows over and over is that IE actually walks the talk. The young people who come out of IE are the best evidence I can offer that what I say is true.
Thanks for your efforts.
jtp. (UT Class of ’91, UT Law Class of ’94)
President Powers,
This is terrific! But let us not forget that innovation via university-community collaborations must extend beyond technology transfer. Solving society’s greatest problems requires top-flight academic research; and it requires us to bring entrepreneurial ways of thinking to how we educate students in the social sciences, arts, sciences and humanities. UT’s Intellectual Entrepreneurship Consortium (IE) provides one example of how this can be accomplished–and in a manner that doesn’t reduce entrepreneurship exclusively to business and material gain. IE is about “educating citizen-scholars”–change agents empowered leverage their knowledge of social good.
https://webspace.utexas.edu/cherwitz/www/ie/
What Starts Here Changes the World!
Professor Cherwitz’ comment couldn’t be more timely or topical, given the extreme focus on the value and real-world applicability of an increasingly expensive undergraduate degree from UT. Three years ago, my oldest child chose Swarthmore College over Plan II specifically because he was looking for an intimate, supportive learning environment that would prepare him “for the common good” to take his knowledge and skills from UT and apply them in the world as a scholar/citizen/activist. This year, my youngest had similar offers to attend similar small liberal arts schools (Bowdoin, Wellesley, Swarthmore, Carlton, etc.), but chose Plan II because of invaluable programs like the Intellectual Entrepreneurship (IE) Consortium. Her learning path will be markedly different from her older brother’s, although no less rich and meaningful because of IE opportunities for offering mentoring and personal interactions with students and professors to better understand how to design her own path for contributing to society after she leaves the 40 acres. As Prof. Cherwitz reminds us…what starts at UT changes the world…thus I challenge UT to do everything in her ability to invest in opportunities to enrich the lives of these Longhorn students/scholars by strongly supporting and encouraging and expanding programs like the UT Intellectual Entrepreneurship Consortium. These efforts convery an eternal heroic aspiration to students while conferring a challenge at the same time: strive in all you do, no matter the obstacles on the horizon, to live a life of meaning, passion and purpose. It is this inspiration that needs to ring out loud and clear from UT. Hook ‘Em!
Prof. Cherwitz makes an excellent point. Any number of students who have worked with me in the Butler School of Music and College of Fine Arts at UT have contributed significantly to their communities at the local and national level, and the excellence of the education that they have received at UT has thus been reflected back into society at large. (They have done so in large part thanks to support from Prof. Cherwitz’s nationally-recognized intellectual entrepreneurship program.) The strength of our University comes from the diversity of contributions that start here and change the world — whether in economic or in human terms. May that diversity of strength continue!
President Powers,
I have to agree with Professor Cherwitz on this matter for several reasons that I think are important for all and every student, faculty member, and professor to remember as a part of this society and as a part of humanity. University-community collaborations can go above and beyond what we thought our limits were as a university system. We can use our knowledge and expertise in all and every area that we have dedicated ourselves to in the university over the years to truly make a difference in other’s lives whether that mean locally, nationally, or even globally. I am a strong believer of synergy within the university and between the university and the community because I have seen what such partnership and innovation can do to further a worthy cause.
I am now a senior here at the university and am proud to say that I was a part of the Intellectual Entrepreneurship program this past year. As a philosophy/psychology major, I have always aspired to be an attorney- and still am. But after learning what I did through this amazing program, and through other organizations I am entirely committed to like the ONE Campaign (a national advocacy group fighting to end extreme poverty by working together internationally), I have realized that I can do so much with what I know and have learned NOW. I am currently pursuing to attain a Masters in Public Health as well as a law degree to better help me become an advocate and fighter for the world’s poorest by positively impacting policies that will help change their way of living for the better. There is too much opportunity for me- for US- to not use for the better of others.
I encourage every individual within the university to pursue such collaboration with other individuals, organizations and ideas, because by working together we can truly make that much bigger of an impact on a cause that we strongly believe in- on a cause that is much bigger than you and me. Thank you for listening.
Paulina
Allow me to underscorte the importance of Rick Cherwitz’s perspective. Intellectual entrepreneurship is the strongest program I know for bringing bright minds through the eye of the needle and into the world with plenty of passion and smart personal perspective. The individual’s sense of the value of knowledge and critical personal participation in the search for solutions to today’s challenges, both local and global, are what makes that young person’s knowledge actionable. When this happens, it’s a gift to society as much as to the student — everybody wins. We need citizen scholars! I am hoping to take this model overseas to projects I’m working on with the Aspen Institute and our US State Department. With cheers for this dialogue and courageous work!
John Cimino, Creative Leaps International
This blog makes a great case for bringing innovation and mentor relationships to UT, but Professor Cherwitz makes an excellent addition! We need not forget that brining entrepreneurial thinking to the arts and humanities can also lead to solutions and growth within the university and the greater community. The IE program is a perfect way to use university scholars and students to analyze community problems and try to solve them. In return, students get to put their passions into practice while really learning about themselves and their interests.
President Powers,
Hope all is well! Great job at commencement! I strongly agree with Dr. Cherwitz’ comment that innovation needs to go further than just the realm of technology. The Intellectual Entrepreneurship Consortium is a great example of this. For example, I am a living testimonial to what this program can provide to students and I strongly recommend it to all students because it gave me more value as a student and a leader. As Dr. Cherwitz also said that IE gives students the chance to use entrepreneurial approaches that are not just limited to business, but can be used to enhance and broaden education. IE gave me many opportunities which I did not have on my own. For example, as the first in my family to attend college many of my fellow students spent summers working in their parents’ medical practices or found an internship through their parents who had already attended college. However, IE gave me the tools and contacts I needed, but did not dilute the independent aspect of being an entrepreneur. I had to go out and find my own mentor, and make everything else happen from getting into a research lab to publishing articles in several venues. IE serves as a resource and it is up to the student to use it. This is a big part of IE which we like to call the “organic” characteristic of IE because it is up to the student to make the most out of the program. This is just what an entrepreneur would do to increase profit except it is the richness of education and human capital that serves as profit. Moreover, as part of the IE-Citizen Scholars we serve as ambassadors to the program to encourage and nurture this idea of using entrepreneurial tools to advance in academia and in the professional world. Hook ‘Em!
I heartily second that. Entrepreneurialism is an attitude and mindset. It is essential for academic units, and universities at large, to reinvent themselves – the moment you stop innovating you are are already falling behind. And yes, this very much applies to the humanities, too.