Case Western Reserve University's Physics Entrepreneurship Program (PEP) has been recognized as a national model for educational institutions training future business leaders.

In honor of its ground-breaking efforts, PEP recently received the Price Institute Entrepreneurship Educators Award at the Roundtable on Entrepreneurship Education for Scientists and Engineers at Stanford University.

According to Tina Seelig, executive director of Stanford Technology Ventures Program, which sponsors the Roundtable, members examined a number of entrepreneurship programs that have been inspired by senior administrators. But she said Case's PEP stands out as one of the few that came from the grass-roots level at the university where "one passionate, charismatic faculty member who believes in the importance of a program," can make a difference.

"PEP demonstrates that a faculty member who is a passionate leader can build an entrepreneurship center within any department at the university," Seelig said. "Physics would not traditionally be thought of as a department to sponsor an entrepreneurship center.

However, under the leadership of Cyrus Taylor, it makes complete sense and turns it into a model for the rest of the university."

For three years, Taylor from Case's College of Arts and Sciences, with the help of Robert Hisrich from the university's Weatherhead School of Management, has integrated the master's level business curriculum into graduate education in the physics department.

The new program quickly became a model for other pure science departments at Case, which have since adopted parallel programs to help scientists become business leaders in math, statistics, chemistry and biology.

Now similar programs are emerging around the country and schools are looking to Case for ways to implement a successful science entrepreneurship curriculum.

"Getting the award attests to the value of the program. As the program has grown from physics to the other sciences, it continues to be a substantial part of the university," said Hisrich, Case's A. Malachi Mixon III Professor of Entrepreneurial Studies.

For information about PEP, visit http://pep.cwru.edu.

Return to the online edition of the 11-13-03 Campus News.