Intellectual Entrepreneurship (IE) at
The University of Texas-Austin (UT) is a
"Cross-Disciplinary Consortium" of the Colleges of
Communication, Liberal Arts, Fine Arts, Natural
Sciences, Engineering, Education, Pharmacy, and the
Schools of Information and Social Work. IE's mission
is to develop "citizen-scholars." These dedicated
individuals own and take responsibility for their
education; they creatively utilize their intellectual
capital as a lever for social good through meaningful
contributions to disciplinary knowledge. IE seeks to
fulfill this mission by: (1) increasing communication
and learning across disciplinary boundaries; (2)
increasing collaboration between the academy and
society, resulting in greater synergies among the many
institutions in the public and private sectors that
discover and put knowledge to work; and (3)
encouraging and promoting creativity as the primordial
spark of this effort.
Intellectual Entrepreneurship is premised on the belief
that intellect is not limited to the academy and
entrepreneurship is not restricted to or synonymous with
business. Entrepreneurship is a process of cultural
innovation. While the creation of material wealth is one
expression of entrepreneurship, at a more profound level
entrepreneurship is an attitude for engaging the world.
Intellectual entrepreneurs, both inside and outside
universities, take risks and seize opportunities, discover
and create knowledge, innovate, collaborate and solve
problems in any number of social realms: corporate,
non-profit, government, and education.
IE has proven to be a promising philosophy and tool for
increasing diversity in higher
education. The IE model of education and public
scholarship has been imitated by other research
universities and has become part of national
discussions about higher education and the public good
and the role of entrepreneurial thinking in arts and
sciences education.
IE began in the Office of Graduate Studies (OGS) in 1997.
Under the stewardship of its founder, Professor Rick Cherwitz (1997-2003), IE
enrolled in classes, workshops, internships, and other
activities more than 4,000 students in over 90
academic disciplines from every UT college and school.
Unlike typical top-down university initiatives, and
consistent with the philosophy of entrepreneurship, IE is a
genuine collaborative partnership with UT's many academic
units. With a budget for AY 2006-2007 in excess of
$140,000, IE receives institutional support from UT's Vice
President for Community Engagement and Diversity and
academic deans from 8 of the campus' colleges/schools. IE
also has expanded to include partnerships with several
local colleges and universities.
IE is working with the Vice President for Resource
Development and college development officers to secure
community sponsors and investors. IE's funding priorities
include support for "IE Follow the Knowledge Fellowships,"
"Entrepreneurships," "Citizen-Scholarships," "Instructional
Incubators," "Action Seminars," "IE Undergraduate
Mentorships and Pre-Graduate School Internships" and other
entrepreneurial vehicles capable of producing
interdisciplinary, socially relevant knowledge and
learning. Money is channeled through the deans' offices of
the colleges that are part of the Consortium and is
distributed to the persons and projects for which the
money is raised.
While many of the IE graduate-level professional
development initiatives continue to operate in The Office
of Graduate Studies (OGS), since 2003 IE has evolved into
an inter-collegial "Consortium." Thus, IE is an overarching
vision and philosophy of education that extends to public
schools, the undergraduate experience, graduate study,
post-doctoral training, faculty research and the
connections between universities and society. IE is not a
program; nor is it a compartmentalized academic unit. IE is
a way of conceptualizing and discharging the mission of
universities in the 21st Century-an engine for deploying
and configuring resources in a world whose challenges
require flexible, organic and sustainable approaches to
education capable of transforming lives for the betterment
of society.
Current initiatives of the IE Consortium include: the
Project in Interpreting the Texas Past (ITP), the
Pre-Graduate School Internship, the IE/NSF IGERT
Partnership, the IE/McNair Scholars Program, the
IE/Gateway/CEC Collaboration, the IE Diversity Project (in
collaboration with the Vice President for Diversity and
Community Engagement and several local colleges and
universities), Academic Engagement, the IE Dissertation
List-Serve/Resources and Job/Career Resources for graduate
students.
Intellectual entrepreneurs understand that genuine
collaboration between universities and the public is
tantamount to more than increased "access" to the academy's
intellectual assets. It is more than "knowledge
transfer"-the exportation of neatly wrapped solutions
rolling off the campus conveyer belt. Collaboration demands
mutual humility and respect, joint ownership of learning
and co-creation of an unimagined potential for
innovation-qualities that move universities well beyond the
typical elitist sense of "service." Knowledge, after all,
involves the integration of theory, practice and
production.
Below are just a few of the many essays and articles about
IE. In 2007 additional articles will appear in Change,
Academe, University Business and Diverse: Issues in Higher
Education. A complete list of publications appears here.
Cherwitz, Richard and Beckman, Gary. "Re-envisioning the Arts Ph.D.: Intellectual
Entrepreneurship and the Intellectual Arts
Leader." Arts Education Policy Review, 107, no.4
(2006): 13-20.
Cherwitz, Richard. "A New Social Compact Demands Real Change:
Connecting the University to the Community."
Change (November/December, 2005).
Cherwitz, Richard. "Creating a Culture of Intellectual
Entrepreneurship." Academe (July/August, 2005).
Hildebrand, David. "Academics Are Intellectual
Entrepreneurs." Peer Review (Spring, 2005): 30-31.
Hurtado, Ana Lucia. "Beyond the Classroom." ALCALDE,
(November/December, 2005). [Versions of this essay
were also published in the Dallas Morning News and
Austin American-Statesman.]
Raspberry, William. "Filling the Racial Gap in Academia."
Washington Post May 31, 2005.
Cherwitz, Richard. "Diversifying Graduate Education: The
Promise of Intellectual Entrepreneurship." Journal
of Hispanic Higher Education 4, No. 1 (January,
2005):19-33.
Cherwitz, Richard and Thomas Darwin. "Crisis as Opportunity: An Entrepreneurial
Approach to Productivity in Higher Education."
Enhancing Productivity in Higher Education, Judith E.
Miller and James Groccia, Eds (Anker Publishing
Company), 2005: 58-68.
Cherwitz, Richard and Charlotte Sullivan. "Intellectual Entrepreneurship: Vision for
Graduate Education." Change (November/December,
2002): 22-27.
Richard A. Cherwitz, Ph.D.
Professor, Department of Communication Studies &
Division of Rhetoric and Writing
Fellow, IC2 Institute
The University of Texas
Austin, Texas 78712
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