Enitiative Projects in Neighborhoods

Enitiative funding has been awarded to the following projects that exemplify the vision of entrepreneurial Scholarship in Action in neighborhoods:

•Advising Neighborhood Entrepreneurs
•A Physical Development Plan for the Near West Side Neighborhood
•Best Practices in Community College Entrepreneurship
•Central New York Entrepreneurs Speak
•Child Care Facility Development in Central New York
•CNY Youth Entrepreneur Symposium
•Community Development Law Clinic
•COMTEK Test Kitchen
•Construction Training and Entrepreneurship
•Development of Wine Institute and Education Center at Cayuga Community College
•Genesis Health Project
•Making Waves
•North Side Asset Development Initiative
•North Side Entrepreneurship Learning Initiative
•Research in Entrepreneurship
•Social Entrepreneurship and Human Services
•Social Entrepreneurship in Urban Education
•South Side Food Cooperative
•South Side Venture Media Project
•Syracuse’s West Side Story
•The Information Components of Inventive Thinking
•The Stardust Institute for Entrepreneurship
•Training Entrepreneurs of the Future at Morrisville

Advising Neighborhood Entrepreneurs
Ronald Wright, Professor in the Department of Business Administration at LeMoyne College, has been chosen as an Enitiative eProfessor.

Professor Wright will develop a new course, Management Consulting, that offers exposure to basic consulting skills that are relevant to any internal or external management consulting experience but with an emphasis on the skills needed to effectively participate in entrepreneurial neighborhood consulting projects. Wright is Professor of Management Science in the Management Division at Le Moyne College. He has over twenty years of experience as a successful management consultant. Professor Wright is an active member of the North-Side Neighborhood Collaboratory. He has also formed a Le Moyne alumni group that provides volunteer consulting services to not-for-profit organizations.

A Physical Development Plan for the Near West Side Neighborhood
Emanuel J. Carter, Jr., Associate Professor and Curriculum Director for the Master of Landscape Architecture program at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry, has been awarded an Enitiative grant to support his physical development plan for the Near West Side neighborhood in Syracuse.

This project is in support of the Near West Side Initiative and the Near West Side Initiative Team (NWIT). It will include the following elements: (1) An introduction to the community of the short-term and long-term benefits of an action plan for neighborhood revitalization; (2) a physical master plan for the neighborhood that addresses community goals, objectives and principles, urban design, landscape, architecture, pedestrian and vehicular circulation, opportunities for new investment, the role of the visual and performing arts, the need for economic diversity, an aesthetic and functional framework, economic and social impacts, and project phasing and funding, and; (3) ways of addressing the plan’s recommendations that involve community participation and the acquisition of new and permanent skills.

Best Practices in Community College Entrepreneurship
Deborah Moeckel, Associate Vice President of Academic and Student Affairs, and Philip Gover, Vice President of Academic and Student Affairs, both at Cayuga Community College, have been awarded an Enitiative grant to research successful entrepreneurial applications that can be adapted, transported, and applied successfully by community colleges and their partners.

Drs. Moeckel and Gover will survey literature, visit successful programs, share information, and develop recommendations based on their findings. They will offer presentations (locally, regionally, statewide, and nationally) and prepare a report for distribution. Successful program templates, paradigms, and models will be offered that can be used for positive and practical results based on what is working. The project will seek to answer such questions as: What partnerships of community colleges, institutes of entrepreneurship and the communities they serve have resulted in successful, sustainable economic and social development, and, What successful partnerships can be replicated locally, regionally, statewide, and nationally?

Central New York Entrepreneurs Speak
Jill Hurst-Wahl, Founder of Hurst Associates, Ltd., has been chosen as an Enitiative ePractitioner.

Jill Hurst-Wahl will launch a CEO Discussion Series in which Central New York CEOs will share their experience with aspiring business people in the community. Potential topics include:

How I located people to invest in my business
How I found million dollar product and service ideas, and
How the government helps me make money.

The series will be held at various locations in the Syracuse area in order to reach a wide audience, including all five Enitiative campuses. In addition to leading Hurst Associates, Jill is a frequent author and presenter on a variety of topics including the use of social networking tools to expand the market of a business. She is also a senior instructor for Syracuse University's School of Information Studies, teaching graduate classes that challenge students to use information and technology in new ways. In 2007, Jill was honored as the "Minority Small Business" Champion by the Syracuse office of the U.S. Small Business Administration.

Child Care Facility Development in Central New York
Patricia Gridley, Professor of Early Childhood Education at Cayuga Community College, has been awarded an Enitiative grant to fund the development of a handbook to serve as a resource for individuals interested in a career as the owner of a child care center.

Quality and accessible child care and education programs attract qualified workers to the community. However, the process involved in opening a child care center is time-consuming and oftentimes difficult to comprehend. In an effort to encourage the development of quality child care centers in the community, Gridley’s project will offer the following: a handbook for the development of a Quality Child Care Center; a handbook for locating and securing financial support; a workshop series; an expansion plan for the CCC Child Care Center; and use of the expanded CCC Child Care Center to serve as a demonstration site for interested parties.

CNY Youth Entrepreneur Symposium
The Paul V. Moore High School Central Square DECA chapter worked with Syracuse University and 40 Below to host the first annual CNY Youth Entrepreneur Symposium (YES) on Friday, October 12, 2007. CNY YES educates the youth in our community about entrepreneurship and highlights education and employment opportunities for entrepreneurs in Central New York. Workshop topics included steps to starting your own business, leadership, and effective marketing strategies.

Community Development Law Clinic
The Syracuse University College of Law’s Community Development Law Clinic (CDLC), directed by Professor Deborah Kenn, has been working in low income communities throughout Syracuse, Onondaga County, and Central New York since 1988. The mission of the clinic is to assist community organizations and businesses to improve the neighborhoods and lives of people in those communities. The CDLC has been awarded an Enitiative grant to broaden its services into the area of intellectual property law (copyright and trademark). This very specialized area of the law is usually cost prohibitive for not-for-profit corporations or start-up businesses. With Enitiative funding, the CDLC will be able to offer community members access to the valuable ownership interests intellectual property rights can bring.

COMTEK Test Kitchen
A commercial product development kitchen located in one of Syracuse’s economically challenged neighborhoods will create marketable products out of local citizens’ recipes. The test kitchen will assist aspiring food entrepreneurs in developing recipes, processing shelf-stable products, and designing packaging to make these products marketable to end consumers. The test kitchen is a collaboration between Syracuse University and Morrisville State College.

Construction Training and Entrepreneurship
Bill Williams, Vice President of Construction Management for Allied Environmental, Inc., has been chosen as an Enitiative ePractitioner.

Bill Williams will work with Scott Ruff, Assistant Professor at Syracuse University’s School of Architecture, to develop the Builders Teaching Builders Partnership. This program will train laborers and supervisors, giving them the opportunity for gainful employment and the ability to become productive members of the local economy, while bringing real world experience and the notion of entrepreneurship to architecture students. Ruff will create a new design/build course in which students will rehabilitate a building on Syracuse’s south side, providing students insight into how to start a new business venture. Students will be equipped with more design flexibility, hands-on construction project management experience, and will learn entrepreneurial skills from practitioners in the construction industry.

Development of Wine Institute and Education Center at Cayuga Community College
William Prosser, Assistant Professor of Business & Economics, and Michael Pacelli, Assistant Professor of Biology, both at Cayuga Community College (CCC), have been awarded an Enitiative grant to develop a Wine Institute and Education Center at CCC.

Research indicates that wine represents an untapped market opportunity worthy of exploration. The Wine Institute will capitalize on Central New York’s reputation for nurturing wineries that produce award-winning wines. CCC plans to renovate and expand an existing facility to include a general purpose classroom, a kitchen area, and temperature/humidity controlled storage area for a wide selection of wine. A science laboratory included with the classroom complex will lend itself to classes in biology, botany, nutrition, conservation, and agronomy. The lab capability would also lend itself to the testing of resveratrol and other compounds in wine.

Genesis Health Project
Luvenia W. Cowart, Associate Professor of Practice in the College of Human Services and Health Professions at Syracuse University, has been awarded an Enitiative grant to support the Genesis Health Project, a community designed, culturally sensitive, self-sustaining program to reduce obesity and its related health risks and to promote healthy lifestyles among African Americans.

Students enrolled in Cowart’s course, Culturally Competent Healthcare, will complete an experiential learning practicum. The experiential learning component will provide an opportunity for students to engage individuals and families from various cultures and utilize new culturally competent strategies in promoting health in non-traditional settings. These learning activities help prepare and equip students to enter health professions specific to working with vulnerable populations and eliminating racial and ethnic disparities. Furthermore, such learning activities will enhance student awareness of potential business opportunities in Syracuse and in the healthcare profession.

Making Waves
Noemí Enchautegui-de-Jesús, Assistant Professor in the psychology department at Syracuse University, and Mary Anne Kelley, Founder and Director of the non-profit organization Making Waves, with the support of the Burton Blatt Institute, have been awarded an Enitiative grant for social entrepreneurship.

Making Waves provides therapeutic play and social interaction in an aquatic environment to children and adolescents with mild and severe special needs. SU faculty and students will help Kelley develop strategies that facilitate the growth and sustainability of her program by providing an analysis of the business plan, collecting data about the prevalence of disability in the region targeted for service, mapping the reach of the program, and by researching a new location on the south side of Syracuse, reaching children with disabilities in the surrounding neighborhoods.

North Side Asset Development Initiative
Dominic Robinson, Director of the Northside Collaboratory, has been chosen as an Enitiative ePractitioner.

Dominic Robinson will lead the Northside Asset Development Initiative (NADI). NADI intends to identify those individuals who possess significant personal assets, work with them to overcome their barriers to economic viability, and link them to employers who will particularly benefit from their skills and talents. Initiative partners recognize the desire of many community members to become business owners, and NADI seeks to empower many of them to achieve that goal. NADI will develop a network of social business ventures within Franciscan Collaborative Ministries, which will provide employment and/or training opportunities to project participants, as well as generate income to supplement the project. Robinson will work with Le Moyne College to provide opportunities for students to participate in this initiative.

North Side Entrepreneurship Learning Initiative
Le Moyne College has been awarded an Enitiative grant to develop curriculum around a community project called the Northside Asset Development Initiative (NADI). Le Moyne faculty will partner with the Northside Collaboratory, a community development stakeholders group, led by the Franciscan Collaborative Ministries (FCM).

Faculty and students will work on several projects including developing a logic model portfolio for the workforce development aspect of the project, investigating strategies for use of commercial space on the FCM campus, helping an emerging business on the north side identify areas for improvement, and providing business literacy for small businesses. At the end of each academic year, participating student teams will present their projects to the Le Moyne and local communities through a symposium.

Research in Entrepreneurship
Johan Wiklund, Professor in Syracuse University’s Martin J. Whitman School of Management, has been chosen as an Enitiative eProfessor.

Professor Wiklund will focus on research in the field of entrepreneurship. His research interests include small business growth, the decision to be self-employed, new venture creation, and corporate entrepreneurship. He is chairman of the International Award for Entrepreneurship and Small Business Research. He is also Associate Editor for Small Business Economics, Editorial Board member of Journal of Business Venturing, Journal of Management Studies, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, and International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal.

Social Entrepreneurship and Human Services
Frank Ridzi, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Director of Urban and Regional Studies, and Director of the Center for Urban and Regional Applied Research (CURAR) at LeMoyne College, has been chosen as an Enitiative eProfessor.

Professor Ridzi will develop a new entrepreneurship course in the sociology department at Le Moyne College. The course, Human Services Caseload Management – Theory and Service Learning, will provide an introduction to human services caseload management, as well as to the processes, skill base, and understandings involved in social entrepreneurship in the human services workplace. Additionally, Professor Ridzi will coordinate a lecture series on social entrepreneurship. His current research projects include applied policy research and research concerning changing workplace dynamics in careers that include public welfare structures and higher education.

Social Entrepreneurship in Urban Education
Patricia Schmidt, Professor in the Education Department at Le Moyne College, has been awarded an Enitiative grant to infuse entrepreneurship into her course, Multicultural Literacy for Urban Education.

Le Moyne students will tutor children at the Cathedral at Pompei (CAP) School, an urban school with 160 children, many from high poverty backgrounds. Le Moyne students will learn the basics of teacher education as well as the importance of reform for urban education. Le Moyne College Center for Urban and Regional Applied Research (CURAR) will assist in data gathering and analysis on issues related to urban education to assist the region with urban planning. The CAP School will gain from stronger connections with the community and the college, so that educators might more effectively work with children living in poverty. The North Side’s Franciscan Collaborative Ministries will acquire more information for their work in developing the neighborhood’s economic, artistic, educational, and entrepreneurial opportunities.

South Side Food Cooperative
The South Side Community Coalition has been awarded an Enitiative grant to hire a full-time coordinator to advance the food cooperative project developed in collaboration with Syracuse University’s College of Law Community Development Law Clinic, the Working Group on Property, Citizenship, and Social Entrepreneurship, and the South Side Initiative.

The food cooperative will be developed, owned, and managed by south side residents. The cooperative will build community capacity, increase residents’ self-sufficiency, improve residents’ access to quality, affordable foods, and improve the decision-making capabilities of owner-members and stakeholders. Profits earned by the cooperative will stay in the community and will be used to strengthen local business.

South Side Venture Media Project
Clear Channel and The Falcone Center for Entrepreneurship have been awarded an Enitiative grant to promote the south side neighborhood and its entrepreneurial community to Syracuse and the region.

Clear Channel will offer its inventoried advertising space to this effort, giving south side businesses a variety of prime time choices and targeted venues to advertise their products and services. In addition, Clear Channel will facilitate group strategic planning sessions, marketing model sessions and action plans for the participating businesses as well as providing meeting space and resources. The Falcone Center will review the marketing plans of those businesses that have received consultation and mentoring and help retool those plans to strengthen existing markets and create new ones. Over two years, 100 businesses will receive new marketing packages. Marketing efforts will also promote the south side as a business venue for Syracuse and the region.

Syracuse’s West Side Story
Dennis Connors, Curator of History at the Onondaga Historical Association, has been chosen as an Enitiative ePractitioner.

Dennis will work with Syracuse University students to publish a 20-page booklet combining text and images to paint a general history of the West Side neighborhood, its architecture, industrial and entrepreneurial heritage, and ethnic legacies using historic resource material available through the Onondaga Historical Association. Publication of this booklet will complement the efforts of the West Side Initiative by highlighting the historic character of the neighborhood, as evidenced in both the physical character of the buildings as well as in the more intangible, historic “feel” or story of the neighborhood. This will appeal to artists who could relocate to the neighborhood as well as engender and maintain a pride in the neighborhood for current residents.

The Information Components of Inventive Thinking
Ruth Small, Professor in the School of Information Studies at Syracuse University and founding director of The Center for Digital Literacy (CDL), has been awarded an Enitiative grant for a two-year research study of inventive thinking in children.

Inventive thinking forms the foundation to entrepreneurial endeavors. The CDL plans to explore the following questions: What are the information requirements (skills, resources, activities) of successful inventive thinking and entrepreneurship? In what ways are inventive thinking processes and information problem-solving processes related? What and how do information-seeking support services influence students’ inventive thinking processes and entrepreneurial activities? How can information services and resources be designed to more effectively motivate and support students’ inventive thinking processes and entrepreneurial activities? Results of this innovative study are expected to add to our knowledge in this relatively untested area of research and be of practical value to future inventors/entrepreneurs, information professionals, and educators who may influence future inventors and entrepreneurs.

The Stardust Institute for Entrepreneurship
Tom Paczkowski, Professor in the Business Department at Cayuga Community College, has been chosen as an Enitiative eProfessor.

Cayuga Community College, the Stardust Foundation, The Fred L. Emerson Foundation, and State Senator Michael Nozzolio have combined forces to create the Stardust Institute for Entrepreneurship in Auburn to serve as a stimulus for economic and social development, complementing existing public and private agencies and services as they prepare the next generation of leaders. Professor Paczkowski will manage several major projects in this initiative including preparation of an entrepreneurship education plan for CCC, developing and teaching an introductory course in entrepreneurship, developing an Incubator Center housed at the college, launching a Student Enterprise Competition, creating a Scholarship in Entrepreneurship funded by a local entrepreneur, creating a CNY Entrepreneurship Hall of Fame, and exploring entrepreneurial programming opportunities with public schools.

Training Entrepreneurs of the Future at Morrisville
James Kelly, Professor in the School of Business at Morrisville State College, has been chosen as an Enitiative eProfessor.

Professor Kelly will oversee Morrisville’s new bachelor’s degree program in entrepreneurship and small business management. He will develop curriculum, advise students, and participate in hiring new faculty for the program. Kelly will teach three entrepreneurship courses: ENTR 317 The Entrepreneurial Process, the gateway course in the new program; BSAD 320 Entrepreneurship, an elective course for several programs at Morrisville; and ENTR 338 Legal Issues for the Entrepreneur a required course in the new program.