WHO ARE OUR STUDENTS? ENTREPRENEURSHIP EDUCATION FOR NONBUSINESS STUDENTS: A NEW TREND J. David Hunger Iowa State University James H. Davis University of Notre Dame

J. Barry Gilmore University of Memphis and R. Wilburn Clouse Vanderbilt University ABSTRACT This symposium presents and discusses a new development in entrepreneurship education at the college level: formal programs in entrepreneurship for non-business students. Traditionally, formal entrepreneurship courses and programs have been housed within the business school and have been made available to non-business students only as individual courses on a limited basis. Those students wishing to either major or minor in entrepreneurship have been forced to enroll in the business school. A similar situation exists in graduate programs. In most instances nonbusiness students may enroll in individual entrepreneurship graduate courses in the business school only when space is available and if the instructor is willing to waive numerous business prerequisites. The assumption seems to be that entrepreneurship is a domain of the business school and is primarily of value to business students. A recent development is the university-sanctioned official minor in entrepreneurship for any non-business student. This symposium presents this and other approaches used to teach entrepreneurship to non-business students. This symposium has been developed to not only inform people regarding various programs being developed to serve the needs of non-business college students, but also to question the role of the business school in the 21st century. The 20th century model of the business school has been one of striving to be a "professional school" - a school separate and distinct from the rest of the university. To enforce this "professional" image (and to control its service commitment to the rest of the university), business schools usually restrict the entry of non-business students into courses beyond the introductory level. Non-business students were often blocked from (usually upper level) entrepreneurship courses by an extensive set of prerequisites. The business school may wish to change its orientation from that of a professional school

separate from the rest of the university to a school integrated with the rest of the university. This new orientation would have the business school actively offering its courses to non-business students instead of restricting their entry into its programs. If the business school fails to acknowledge the significant demand by non-business students to learn about entrepreneurship, then we should expect more entrepreneurship programs to develop outside the business school curriculum. This may or may not be a bad thing, but it does have some serious implications for the role of the business school in the university and raises the question of where entrepreneurship as a field of knowledge should be taught.