Last fall, Lawrence University opened its Business & Entrepreneurship Center inside downtown Appleton’s newly redeveloped Fox Commons (formerly City Center Plaza).
The opening marked the latest development in the university’s efforts to expand its business programming and grow academic opportunities for students.
Professor of Innovation and Associate Professor of Economics Adam Galambos serves as executive director of the center, which supports career exploration and mentoring opportunities in business and entrepreneurship.
“For those of us at Lawrence who have been involved with developing our innovation, entrepreneurship and business programming for over a decade now, this space is a dream come true,” Galambos said during the center’s Oct. 23 opening event. “And it is my hope that this will be the place where many of our students get the support they need to make their dreams come true.”
Located on the second floor of Fox Commons, the center includes a large multipurpose room; a stage for lectures, performances and pitch competitions; a finance lab equipped with data analysis and finance terminals; and a group study and meeting space for students, faculty and community collaborators.
Other Lawrence spaces in Fox Commons will include suite-style apartments for 174 students and adjoining cocurricular spaces such as the Pre-Health Commons that is scheduled to open this summer. Designed to support career exploration in health fields, this space will offer collaborative health and wellness programming and a demonstration kitchen.
Galambos, who helped launch the university’s innovation and entrepreneurship program about 10 years ago, says the Business & Entrepreneurship Center is the result of growing student demand for broader business programming.
This increased demand led the university two years ago to launch a business and entrepreneurship major, which has quickly become one of the top majors on campus. Today students majoring in business and entrepreneurship can explore paths in entrepreneurship, arts entrepreneurship, business analytics, global business, and natural resource and energy management, all through a liberal arts lens.
Galambos says partnerships with the local business community are critical to the center’s success.
“We are looking to create events that connect the campus and the business communities and that are of interest to both,” he says. “There are plenty of opportunities like that we are going to explore now.”
Lawrence recently signed a partnership agreement with gener8tor, a startup accelerator, to work with students and faculty and to support the entrepreneurial ecosystem in the Fox Valley. Through the partnership, gener8tor hosts events such as the monthly Appleton Founders Series featuring local startup founders and offers students individualized coaching and support.
Managing Director for gener8tor Andrew Schmitz is a founder himself, and he says the benefit of a brick-and-mortar location like the new center can’t be overstated.
“When I was getting started, I felt very alone. Tech founders who live here in Appleton have done some incredible things, but they’re just harder to find,” he says. “I’m hoping that this center is the place that they can go to find each other and benefit from a sense of community that I think will exist when we get things really pumping here.”
But the Business & Entrepreneurship Center will not just benefit students, Galambos says. It will bring more talent to local businesses as well.
“If we are successful in connecting students more to the business community and bringing that cocurricular aspect to their education, that will, in the long run, lead to more internships and more jobs,” he says, “and maybe even founders from our student body who will stay in the area, work here and help make this a more vibrant business community.”
As a new initiative, Galambos says the center is looking to partner with local organizations of all kinds, from small businesses to large corporations as well as nonprofits and community organizations.
“We are always looking to create new collaborations, to bring programming to students and to connect the campus with the community,” he says. “We are interested in whatever ideas people would like to bring to create those connections.”
On the web lawrence.edu/offices/becenter
