Can University Faculty Practice What They Preach.

• Author: Wisnieski, Joette

INTRODUCTION

When the Business Plan Committee conference call began in April 2012, there was a lot of excitement on the line. Two days prior to the call, the committee hosted its first student business plan competition awards event, and it was a huge success. Three hundred students from 20 universities participated in the state system's first business plan competition. Two hundred people from across the state attended the awards ceremony including students, faculty, university administrators, system administrators, and state officials. While the planning committee members from the 20 state universities basked in the success of the 2012 competition, they knew making the competition an annual one would be a challenge. After the initial exchange of congratulations and positive reflections on the competition and the awards event, the committee got down to business and began to discuss whether to host a second business plan competition. A new host university was needed and a Request for Proposal (RFP) had just been issued and information concerning it would be provided on the conference call.

Dr. Jack Martin was a professor serving on the committee. Jack was chosen as he was a director of an ExCEL (Excellence in Entrepreneurship Leadership Center). It was never made clear how the others were chosen for participation. In fact, Jack didn't know until the first phone call that would be on that call as the committee was never informed as to who actually accepted the invitation. The committee was chaired by a member of the State staff whose duties included economic development and this competition was seen as a possible driver for this. Carol D. was the driver for this competition as she received a grant to help get this started.

Jack had received an invitation with a copy of the invite going to the President, Provost and his Dean in the College of Business; all of who indicated that they assumed he would be accepting. He felt he had no choice originally in being part of this competition.

He was delighted with the success of the competition, however, he was not sure he wanted to submit a proposal to run the competition for the following two years.. Planning a business plan competition across a 20 university state system was a herculean feat. Getting faculty and administrators from 20 universities to work together was difficult. In looking ahead, Jack knew that the committee faced some challenges if they wanted to make the competition continue. One of the biggest challenges was how to sustain the competition. The competition, prizes, and award ceremony had nearly depleted the committee's funds. In addition, planning and implementing the competition required a great deal of time and effort by the committee members and he assumed even more by the coordinator.

The committee was quite diverse. The members included university faculty and administrators from the twenty state institutions, as well as members of the system's office. The committee members had demanding jobs in addition to serving on the business plan committee. In addition, each of the 20 universities was unique as to its culture, strengths and weaknesses, size, and priorities. Some of the universities were more research intensive than others, some were located in economically thriving areas while others were located in depressed economic areas. Working on a system wide business plan competition required that the committee members focus on a system wide initiative and less on their individual university. Furthermore, the committee met virtually to plan the competition because of the significant geographic distance among the universities. It was impractical to hold face to face meetings. Jack was not totally comfortable chairing and coordinating everything the way it had been done in the past. Votes were taken of the committee of the whole for almost every decision and this turned into a time consuming and laborious process.

Dr. Jack Martin was a Professor of Entrepreneurship; he had earned tenure and a promotion to Professor in 2007. In addition to teaching entrepreneurship, Dr. Martin served as the director of the Entrepreneurship Center at his university. Jack was passionate about teaching entrepreneurship and providing students with opportunities to experience entrepreneurship first-hand. Recognized internationally for his entrepreneurship research, he did consulting for early stage companies especially related to the structure of the management team. He was writing a book on Entrepreneurship. Dr. Martin was frequently asked to speak at business related events on the topic of entrepreneurship, and he served on several startup company boards. Jack was also active in a number of regional and national professional organizations, several of which were academic entrepreneurship organizations.

Jack was experienced in the classroom. He was active in both university and community service. He was rated very high by his students on his teaching evaluations. He worked very hard to provide students with opportunities to apply the theory he taught in the classroom to practice. This included business plan competitions. He had planned and implemented several business plan competitions in the past, one of which was regional in scope but nothing would compare to this. Jack served on the system wide business plan competition committee since its launch twelve months prior. Several of his students were among the competition semi-finalists.

Jack was concerned about coordinating and planning a second competition. The information on the conference call concerning the RFP had good news and bad. Only proposals from the original committee members would be considered. The budget situation was very bleak and plans were made for a subcommittee to work on another grant to help continue funding for the competition. This could be a wonderful opportunity but it was also going to drain some of the college's limited resources. While there was salary available for a part time coordinator, Jack knew this person was going to take a lot of supervision. There was no travel money, telephone, office expenses, anything else. This meant he needed his dean's commitment. As the conference call ended Jack began to write an email to the Dean of his school requesting permission to reply to the RFP. Jack thought it was best to contact the Dean Kelley before he committed further as the Dean Kelley would have to supply resources to this. Jack thought through all the problems and was trying to decide which ones he could fix as coordinator and which were the nature of the committee and at this point couldn't be changed. As he contemplated what to write to the Dean his phone rang. "Hi Jack. This is Jane. Are you going to apply to the RFP to coordinate the business plan competition committee?"

"Good timing Jane," he said. "I was just remembering all of the problems and issues from last year and trying to decide what I could fix as coordinator and what could not be fixed at this point? What about you?"

"I am taking over the department while my chair is on maternity leave so it is not an option for me. I thought you would be thinking about it and might want to chat about it." So both Jack and Jane revisited that first year.

BACKGROUND

The first business plan competition hosted by the state university system was planned by a committee of faculty and administrators from the 20 universities in the system. Resources for the first competition were provided by a grant to the state system with the understanding that the committee would secure funding for the second year and that the competition would become sustainable in future years. The 20 universities were strategically located throughout the state. Each university was classified as a regional comprehensive university. However, there was great diversity in the size and scope among the universities, variation in the level of research intensity, and the economic conditions of the area in which each university was located. The smallest of the 20 universities had an enrollment of 1000 students while the largest had an enrollment of 20,000 students. In total, there were approximately 200,000 students enrolled across the system, most of whom were state residents.

The system office was located in the state capitol and led by a Chancellor who oversaw the administration of system wide matters including funding from the state budget. The mission of the system was to provide a value priced education for residents of the state. Each university operated with some autonomy, was led by a President and Provost, and each had its own board of trustees. Faculty members were hired by a university and were tenured and promoted at their university. There was variation in the policies across the universities, but some policies were system wide. At most of the 20 universities the faculty typically taught four courses each semester in addition to maintaining moderate research and service commitments. At three of the universities research was a priority and the faculty had lighter teaching loads and less service, but the research expectations were higher than the other 17 universities.

Most faculty members considered their first loyalty to the university at which they taught or to their discipline. The commitment to the state system existed but was much less than to their university and discipline.

Start-Up of the Business Plan Committee

"I was very excited about that email," Jack said.

In March of 2011, Jack received an email invitation from the state system office to participate in planning a student business competition. The email emphasized the system-wide nature of the competition and the goal of involving all 20 universities. Jack was invited to represent his university on the planning committee. The first meeting was scheduled for the second Friday in April by conference call. Jack was pleased to have the opportunity to work with faculty and administrators from across the...