Vision

The Francis Marion University Center for Entrepreneurship will be the focal point for entrepreneurial activity for the state of South Carolina.

The Center’s mission is to lead the state’s advancement of entrepreneurial practice and education through the development of outreach initiatives, teaching and research that inspire innovative thinking and cultivate entrepreneurial leadership.

The Vision for the Center is to foster and promote new business opportunities, advancing the teaching, study and practice of entrepreneurship and new creation.

 

The Center

The Center offers graduate and undergraduate courses taught by the best faculty in the School of Business and by outside professionals working in a wide range of entrepreneurial areas. Through its entrepreneurship curriculum, internships, mentoring, incubation and creation of new ventures, the Center contributes to South Carolina’s economy by providing an environment and resources that enable people to create new businesses or improve existing ones.

The Center will:

  • Provide Expertise in diverse academic disciplines to various stakeholders around the state that may need business consulting services.
  • Conduct research that will have a positive impact on economic development in the local, regional, and state economies.
  • Procure grant funding to support entrepreneurship and economic development projects.
  • Foster new venture creation through interdisciplinary collaboration in science, engineering and the arts.
  • Train South Carolina school teachers and students in opportunity recognition and business plan development.
  • Create new enterprises, whether for profit or non-for-profit, that are viable and sustainable.

Curricula

Graduate Course – Mgt 758

Business Initiation and Entrepreneurship

Indentifying economic needs and markets, establishing enterprises to meet these needs and strategies and tactics for competing in both domestic and foreign markets.

Undergraduate Course – Mgt 454

Entrepreneurship and Small Business

Study of the special problems of initiating and managing a small business. Integrates the functions of finance, marketing and management and stresses the special discipline and characteristics required of the small business entrepreneur.

 

Enrichment

A broad and structured set of enrichment programs expands learning opportunities far beyond the classroom.

The Executive Entrepreneur Speaker series brings national business leaders to FMU to share their perspective entrepreneurship as an engine for economic growth.

 

Outreach and Community Service

Entrepreneurship students and faculty participate in a  broad variety of outreach programs with a number of community organizations.

The Donald E. Kelley Small Business Institute is a program designed to provide a learning opportunity for business students by offering business planning assistance to start-up and existing small businesses in the Pee Dee. The program has been long standing at the university since the 1970s. during the summer of 2005, the state appropriated funding to expand the services and visibility of the institute. Since the expansion, the SBI has been able to assist over 100 local businesses through business planning services and management internships. Entrepreneurship education and training are provided to school teachers and students. The SBI has successfully hosted a Bizcamp for public school students for the last three years through partnerships with YESCarolina and local businesses.