On Thursday, May 12 from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m., Carleton’s Career Center will host a special presentation celebrating its success providing students with entrepreneurial opportunities as part of their academic experience. Professor emeritus Bob Will ’50, professor Nathan Grawe, and businessman Eric Carlson ’66 will present “Carleton, Entrepreneurship, and the Liberal Arts,” a discussion of this successful initiative. This event takes place in the College’s Gould Library Athenaeum and is free and open to the public. Light refreshments will also be served.
The presentation will include will stories of students who are deeply engaged in entrepreneurship, reflecting upon how the Carleton culture is embracing this new enterprise. Attendees will also be invited to share their own experiences with entrepreneurship and to consider the connection between a liberal arts education and entrepreneurial activity.
In 2013, the Robert E. Will ’50 Endowed Internship Fund in Social Entrepreneurship was established to provide students with meaningful experiences in social entrepreneurship. Administered by Carleton’s Career Center, the fund supports 8-10 domestic or international internships per year at up to $5,000 each for students. The program is designed to give students invaluable, first-hand knowledge about social entrepreneurship careers. Internships include experiences in clean energy, agriculture, the environment, health care, job creation, mobile commerce, financing, and transportation systems. The goal is to promote social change as a career path.
The fund is named in honor of Bob Will, Carleton Class of 1950, the Raymond Plank Professor of Incentive Economics Emeritus, and long-time Northfield community member.
On May 12, Will plans to chronicle the genesis of entrepreneurship on the Carleton campus and how those efforts have evolved over time. Carlson, a member of the Carleton Class of 1966, will describe his own experiences in the start-up culture of Silicon Valley and how Carleton creates opportunities to spark entrepreneurship (for example, through Kickstarter type campaigns and internships). Grawe, the Ada M. Harrison Distinguished Teaching Professor of the Social Sciences and chair of Carleton’s economics department, will discuss the entrepreneurship competition and bring to light activities that alumni are engaged in and how their Carleton education served as a springboard for their work.
This event is sponsored by the Carleton College Career Center. For more information, including disability accommodations, please call (507) 222-4293. The Gould Library is located off College Street on the Carleton campus and is also accessible via Highway 19 in Northfield.