In the New North region, higher education officials know that encouraging entrepreneurship is one of the strongest ways to support the local economy and help reduce the loss of young talent through “brain drain.”

And they’re actively working on new programs, majors and workshops to help engage students who are interested in innovating and creating change from their own backyards, whether the reach is local or global.

Lawrence University, which has had an entrepreneurship curriculum for the past decade, announced last November a new business and entrepreneurship major, developed in part because of high student demand for such courses. The major, which is available starting this academic year, offers an interdisciplinary approach for future innovators.

“We really define entrepreneurship as about seeking solutions to important problems, whether they’re in business, social or environmental,” says Claudena Skran, chair of the university’s innovation and entrepreneurship program. “We really take a broader vision, and an entrepreneur is someone who innovates in whatever area they’re in, and then tries to create institutional solutions to particular problems.”

Lawrence’s program is a bachelor of arts, versus a bachelor of business administration. It will teach the foundational skills necessary to operate a business, but under the wider umbrella of a liberal arts education and within four focus areas: entrepreneurship for startups and social enterprises, an arts entrepreneurship for musicians and others, business analytics, and natural resources and energy management. Students also can develop their own focus areas, Skran says.

The university recognizes “that the world today really requires innovative solutions to the problems we’re facing, whether it’s environmental problems like climate change, how you cope with globalization and technological change, or whether it’s all the social changes, both in the U.S. and globally,” Skran says. “They need to be able to be creative; they need to be able to innovate; they need to be able to find practical solutions to all the problems we are facing.”

So far, about 50 students are enrolled in the program’s required innovation and entrepreneurship course.

Adding certificates

Over the past few years, Fox Valley Technical College, which has an associate degree program in small business entrepreneurship, has been adding certificate programs as well. That way students studying in other program areas also can earn additional credentials for entrepreneurship and small business management, says Doug Schacht, entrepreneurship instructor for FVTC.

Potential entrepreneurs often study in other program areas with plans to work a few years and then maybe start a business or take over a family one.

“Why not give them some background in entrepreneurship and small business management to just help them have a greater chance of success?” Schacht says.

The college started with entrepreneurial certificates in agriculture and construction management, with more recently added. These include interior design, hospitality, horticulture and outdoor power equipment. New areas of focus like IT, communications or massage therapy are possible, Schacht says.

Students who go through the program and are ready to start a business also can tap into the resources offered by The Venture Center at FVTC, which works with new entrepreneurs.

“These next generations of young professionals don’t want the life that their parents had,” Schacht says. “They don’t want to go work for a company for 30, 40 years. They just want to have so much more freedom and flexibility, and being your own boss can really provide that.”

UW Oshkosh also offers a certificate through its Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, hosts accelerator and incubator programs, and has helped dozens of students start businesses. Moraine Park Technical College has both associate degree and certificate programs in small business entrepreneurship and offers non-credit classes to the community.

New activities and events have been added through NWTC’s Center for Entrepreneurship, which helps students, alumni and non-credit participants, including those working through the college’s Artisan & Business Center and Woodland Kitchen Entrepreneurs, says Center Coordinator Lisa Taylor.

“Day to day, we help with that technical assistance piece to people who are starting a business, looking at how to grow an existing business, maybe needing some help with different aspects of their business if they already have one up and running,” says Taylor.

The center is hosting a number of events, including biannual pitch competitions, and this fall the center is looking at rolling out a rural entrepreneurship initiative that would reach communities like Marinette, Sturgeon Bay and Shawano. In November, the center is planning to host a diversity in business showcase at the Green Bay campus, Taylor says.

“Entrepreneurship helps to bring in services and products and things like that that may be not available yet in our communities, especially in our rural communities,” she says. “It also helps people financially. Generating that income for a family and possibly even creating jobs is quite important to the economy and keeping it healthy.”

Redesigning curriculum

The University of Wisconsin-Green Bay’s new Cofrin Technology and Education Center, planned for 2026, will include a brand new Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation to be a “headquarters for our campus-wide efforts” to engage multiple disciplines in entrepreneurial learning, says Mathew Dornbush, dean of the Austin E. Cofrin School of Business.

With new schools of engineering and nursing, and rapidly-growing computer science and health science programs, entrepreneurship programs are “critically important to reaching those other groups that have different skillsets and need that foundation for business initiation that our entrepreneurship program can provide them,” Dornbush says. “That’s a really important strategy that we’re trying to pursue here at UW-Green Bay.”

The university currently has a bachelor’s in business administration program with an entrepreneurial emphasis, an entrepreneurship certificate, and is in the process of adding a 30-credit minor. It is redesigning its entrepreneurship curriculum to build on the experiential and applied learning process of the program.

“That’s really where we see the future of education, and entrepreneurship is clearly critical to that,” Dornbush says.

The region has so many industries seeking solutions to issues they encounter, whether it’s small manufacturers creating products for dairy farms or digital entrepreneurs creating new apps, says Paul Werner, assistant teaching professor at UW-Green Bay. Younger students also are seeking more independence with their income and futures.

“Entrepreneurship is very robust in Northeast Wisconsin, and a lot of the students are choosing entrepreneurship because they want to have more agency,” Werner says.

With leading organizations like Schreiber Foods, Schneider, KI, Green Bay Packaging and of course the Green Bay Packers, “we really feel like it’s part of our responsibility to make sure that that sort of culture is carried on into the future to assure continued prosperity for the region,” Dornbush says.

UW-Green Bay also works closely with partners like TitletownTech, the Urban Hub, and Wisys, Dornbush adds, and the university aims to help facilitate more of those types of partnerships.

“We really define entrepreneurship as about seeking solutions to important problems, whether they’re in business, social or environmental.”

— Claudena Skran, chair, Lawrence University Innovation and Entrepreneurship program 

Building partnerships

St. Norbert College’s Center for Business and Economic Analysis, which conducts data analytics to serve the business and nonprofit communities, recognized a deficit in Northeast Wisconsin in startups, says Kevin Quinn, dean of the Donald J. Schneider School of Business & Economics.

“The thing that struck me is the way that bridges had been built between the funders and the entrepreneurs in places like the Boston 128 Corridor, or Silicon Valley, that those two groups spoke common language,” Quinn says. “That was not true here.”

Universities in the region decided to act. That’s how some regional pitch contests were launched, and “attracted so much attention that we were able to generate philanthropic support for a new entrepreneurship center,” Quinn says.

St. Norbert’s new Center for Entrepreneurship was created through the college’s Support What Matters fundraising campaign, including a $1 million gift from Larry and Kathy Gentine. The center is a part of the Schneider School and will eventually live in the Donald and Patricia Schneider Family Hall, which is set to open in fall 2025. The new building will have areas dedicated to business activity, including a “pitch pit” to teach people how to showcase their business ideas.

“The physical space is really important because it gives us an opportunity to do what we want to do; but in the end, it’s what’s going on in that space that really matters,” Quinn says. “But we have the opportunity to really build out a fairly robust place where this is the center of attention.”

Even though business students are often interested first in starting a business, entrepreneurship reaches across disciplines, Quinn says. “If you’re a musician, learning how to be an entrepreneur is the way to become an artist, a successful artist or musician. How do you sell yourself? How do you sell your ideas?”

And the center may provide more opportunities to pull together those community resources to help grow the next generation of innovators.

“Fortunately, Wisconsin has always been loaded with civic, community-minded people that are able to think outside of their own skin,” Quinn says.