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ELIZABETH C. KISENWETHER
Engineering Entrepreneurship Program
The Pennsylvania State University
SARAH E. RZASA
Schreyer Institute for Teaching Excellence
The Pennsylvania State University
JOHN C. WISE
Engineering Instructional Services
The Pennsylvania State University
ABSTRACT
A primary goal of The Pennsylvania State Universitys new
Engineering Entrepreneurship (E-SHIP) Minor is to build students life skills so they can succeed within innovative, productfocused, cross-disciplinary teams. The E-SHIP Minor is
designed for undergraduate students majoring in engineering,
business, or IST (Information Sciences and Technology) who
aspire to be innovation leaders for new technology-based products and companies. This paper outlines five E-SHIP program
components to meet this mission: the core courses for the minor,
E-SHIP competitions in which students exhibit their products
and ideas, the E-SHIP Event Series, student organizations to
support out-of-classroom entrepreneurial interest, and team projects for local industry and Penn State researchers. Penn States
engineering entrepreneurship program is reviewed, summarizing
both quantitative and qualitative assessment data to date, previewing future assessment plans, and providing a summary of
lessons learned during the development and implementation of
this program.
Keywords: engineering entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship
program assessment, entrepreneurial skills
I. INTRODUCTION
The Pennsylvania State Universitys (Penn States) Engineering Entrepreneurship (E-SHIP) Minor is housed within the
College of Engineering and operates in close collaboration with
* This article is an expansion of a manuscript presented at the 2003 National
Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance Conference.
April 2005
both the Smeal College of Business and the School of Information Sciences and Technology (IST) [1]. The broad goals of the
E-SHIP minor are to provide students with multiple exposures
to what it means to have an entrepreneurial mindset and to facilitate the development of both the passion and the ambiguitymanagement skills needed for new product or venture creation.
The expected outcomes of the minor include an increase in motivation; improvement of communication, leadership, and teamwork skills; development of problem solving and innovative
thinking skills; and a better understanding of business and financial knowledge. Research into and assessment of students
growth in these skills and aptitudes are critical for three reasons.
First, the skills listed above can be mapped directly onto the
ABET Engineering Criterion 3 [2]. Success in entrepreneurship
education means success in achieving Criterion 3s challenging
goals. Second, as the population of young, bright engineers
grows in developing countrieswhere their salaries are typically
lower than U.S. engineering salaries by a factor of five or so
corporations must perceive the value of retaining engineering
jobs in the U.S. Engineers with the skills developed in this program will be of high value as corporate innovators as well as technical leaders. In addition, improved entrepreneurial skills such as
commercializing technology should lead to significant economic
development benefits to corporations and the U.S. economy as a
whole. Finally, the faculty and administrations in engineering
programs across the U.S. are launching new courses in technology entrepreneurship, often in collaboration with other disciplines
such as business, liberal arts, and science. Membership in the
Entrepreneurship Division of ASEE has grown from less than
20 in 2000 to over 500 members in 2004. Such rapid growth in a
new area of engineering education should be researched and
assessed.
Penn States Engineering E-SHIP Minor is part of a growing
movement of technology-focused entrepreneurship programs. Led
by the early and well-known program innovators at Stanford
University [3] and MIT [4], a broad spectrum of colleges and universities have developed strong undergraduate engineering entrepreneurship programs or courses, including Lehigh University [5],
Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology [6], University of Maryland
[7], University of Central Florida [8], Rowan University [9],
Worchester Institute of Technology [10] and Tri-State University
[11]. Smaller colleges and universities, such as the University of
Kansas-Salina, are also creating innovative grass-roots engineering
entrepreneurship programs, showing that fostering student interest
in entrepreneurship before establishing courses is a potential consensus-building approach leading to a mindset change for students
and faculty.
A common feature across these engineering entrepreneurship
programs, including Penn States, is their cross-disciplinary and
the desire to focus their curricula and learning on technology
Journal of Engineering Education 233
budget constraints, the new courses in the minor were developed with a grant from the GE Foundation but ongoing
support will largely come from endowments and grants as
well as some institutionalized support.
In summary, the structure of Penn States E-SHIP Minor combines best practices from other engineering entrepreneurship programs with some new course innovations and the realities of
launching a new academic minor in tight financial times. For example, Penn State followed the footsteps of Rowan University with a
student venture fund, underwritten by the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance (NCIIA). The E-SHIP Minor
was one of the first programs to require students to take a crossskills course, which is described in Section II. (This cross-skills effort has become part of the entrepreneurship program at Tri-State
University.) Another unique feature of the program is the strong
working relationship between the Smeal College of Business and
College of Engineering in offering the E-SHIP Minor. Business
faculty members teach the Business Basics course, ensuring top
quality instruction and a mix of faculty from across Penn State actively involved in the E-SHIP Minor.
It should be noted that the desired impact for the Penn State ESHIP Minor is help ensure each E-SHIP student has a new vision
of what types of jobs he or she can hold, and that creating a job (and
a company), rather than just getting a job, is feasible. For example,
students see that being hired by an innovative, growth-oriented
company will likely be highly rewarding, allow personal growth,
and encourage networking and learningkeys to establishing the
groundwork for becoming an entrepreneur. Granted, having a student or student team start a successful company while at Penn State
is a sign of program successand is exciting and welcomeit is not
a specific metric by which the program is measured. We note that
some students decide that becoming an entrepreneur is not for
them, also a valid outcome of the program. We also note that the
broader impacts of the E-SHIP Minor for the graduates will likely
be seen years after graduation.
This paper outlines student opportunities in Penn States ESHIP Minor and program, as well as the assessment program designed to measure their progress in becoming more entrepreneurial.
Figure 1. Core course sequence for Penn States Engineering Entrepreneurship Minor.
Table 1. Distribution of outcomes for E-SHIP Minor students and allocation of coverage to core courses.
B. E-SHIP Competitions
An E-SHIP Competition is held at the end of each semester.
Early in the development of the E-SHIP program, the faculty
and program leaders made a conscious decision to steer the ESHIP Competition away from being solely a business plan competition to more of a new venture competition. E-SHIP teams
from three core courses (ENGR 310, ENGR 407, and ENTR
430) compete as part of the College of Engineerings Product
Design Showcase. Hence, students are part of a product solution
team a minimum of three times as they complete the E-SHIP
Minor. Deliverables required for each team at the E-SHIP
Competition include:
Journal of Engineering Education 235
Table 2. Map between outcomes of ABET Engineering Criterion 3 and the Engineering E-SHIP Minor.
prototype of product/process/solution;
five-minute elevator pitch to convince reviewer of the products value proposition;
236
Venture Capital Basics, with a panel including a venture capitalist and entrepreneurs who hold opposing views on the use
of VC funds for company growth based on personal
experience.
Table 3. Number of student teams participating in the first four E-SHIP Competitions.
Life as a Technology Entrepreneur, with two entrepreneurs relaying their start-up experiences, including how to
balance life with work
E-SHIP Collegiate Bowl, with a moderator providing questions related to entrepreneurship and current business events
to two teams, one of students and the other faculty where
each person was provided a beeper or horn to signal that
they had the answer and points scored in different rounds.
electronic products (such as evaluation boards for RF, infrared, data collection);
cables, connectors;
development software;
materials stay with the student team if further product/business development is planned either as a Stage II Team (in
ENGR 496), or the team continues work with the Penn
States SIFE (Students in Free Enterprise) student group;
tween the students from the E-SHIP Minor who responded to the
survey and the comparison group of students. The students in
minor self-select to enroll in the E-SHIP courses. These students
potentially already have an interest in entrepreneurship. They potentially also could have different characteristics, such as stronger
leadership abilities or creativity.
Due to budgetary constraints, only the online instrument was
administered to a very small comparison set of students. The comparison group was not administered the surveys relating to communication, teamwork, and creative-thinking skills. A better understanding of these constructs might be obtained by administering
surveys to both the E-SHIP and a similar group of non-participating students. While there were no significant differences in SAT
scores, gender, or semester standing, we did not control for the
grades of the students. The best type of data collection technique
would be to administer the surveys to a larger random sample,
which could potentially provide information on the pre-existing
differences between E-SHIP students and the remaining engineering student population.
An additional concern of the assessment included the potential
self-selection bias of the respondents versus non-respondents. Because the respondents voluntarily choose to participate in both the
survey and the focus groups, the participants could in fact have different characteristics than non-participants. Perhaps those students
who participated were more motivated or were high-achievers.
While the SAT scores are similar for respondents versus non-respondents on the survey, a future course of action might be to compare final course grades in the E-SHIP courses.
Additionally, administering the surveys online potentially decreased the response rate. In-person, in-class administration of the
instruments would probably have increased participation and perhaps
yielded enough statistical power to gain significance, but the use of
the online version was deemed preferable as being less intrusive. Also,
while an increased response rate could have been achieved by administering the surveys in person or by giving extra credit for participation, a potential concern was that students could be enrolled in more
than of the E-SHIP courses during a particular semester. Therefore,
students could be asked to take the survey in more than one class. If
extra credit had been offered, it would be difficult to set up criteria for
which course the points would be allocated.
As the trends all appear to be in the hypothesized direction, it
seems likely that an improved administration of the instruments
will result in statistically significant findings. Qualitative data do
provide support to the relatively weak quantitative findings. Students were consistently positive toward the courses, while honestly
expressing some reservations. Given these limitations to the quantitative data, which must be considered, it still does seem that participation in the E-SHIP courses does have a positive effect on the
students development in the several identified areas.
In many cases, the focus group information seemed to provide a
clearer picture of the effects of the E-SHIP minor. One potential
concern with our data, however, is that we do not have proportions
for students who agreed with each individual question. In other
words, we do not have an exact percentage of students who believed that the minor was beneficial in each area. This is due to the
nature of focus groups. Not every student answers each individual
question, which makes calculating proportions difficult. A future
analysis will include collecting frequency data for each emergent
theme.
Journal of Engineering Education 241
Another weakness of the current assessment plan is the over-reliance on self-report data. Although other types of data have been
collectedsuch as online portfolios, examples of business plans, and
openended tests of course contentanalyzing this type of data has
proven to be challenging. This part of the assessment plan requires
further development in the form of valid rubrics and training of
raters.
An additional future action is to explore the findings related to
gender. The E-SHIP program at Penn State has been shown to draw
proportionately more females than are enrolled in the college as a
whole. At this point in time, we cannot determine the reason why the
program draws a high proportion of females. However, other programs at Penn State, such as an Engineering Leadership Minor, have
reported similar findings. Future investigation into this phenomenon
could perhaps yield interesting results for other institutions.
Some of the effects of the E-SHIP program may not be immediately evident. The hope is that students who participate in the courses will come away with knowledge and skills that may influence their
future career decisions. In order to best evaluate the effects of the ESHIP program, assessment must occur after students enter the
workforce. With the impending graduation of the first cohort of students, extended assessment of alumni is being developed.
IV. CONCLUSION
Penn States E-SHIP Minor has achieved the milestone of
institutionalization and now has multiple new milestones to
reach. Based on two years of GE Fund program time and three
semesters of E-SHIP course offerings, the following are our principal lessons learned for new engineering or technology E-SHIP
programs:
1. Implement assessment as early as possible. Having data from
very early in the E-SHIP program on student growth in ESHIP skills areas is a powerful tool for guiding the E-SHIP
program, grant writing, and requesting funding from within
the institution.
2. Encourage students that they can define a new great product
with huge potential to meet a product need. Set the standard
high for quality of new product and venture ideas, and the
students will respond (albeit after initial doubt).
3. Provide E-SHIP students multiple experiences in diverse
teams, high-pressure presentations, and tough questioning
by entrepreneurs. Handling these situations with success and
confidence separates the engineering entrepreneur from the
standard engineering student.
4. Look for starter technologies within your own institution,
and have E-SHIP student teams work with the researcher(s)
to develop new products, companies, and strategic alliances.
This opportunity is unique to the university environment.
Use it to your programs advantage. It is a winwin situation
for all stakeholders (researcher, student, institution, and ESHIP program).
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors and the Penn State College of Engineering recognize and appreciate the support of the GE Foundation and the Na242
tional Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance for inter-disciplinary technology entrepreneurship education. The assessment
section of this paper draws heavily from the final report on the Problem-Based Learning in Entrepreneurship project that was funded
through the GE Learning Excellence Fund (Summer 2003).
REFERENCES
[1] The Pennsylvania State University Engineering Entrepreneurship
Education (E3), http://e-ship.ecsel.psu.edu.
[2] Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET)
2000, Criterion 3: Program Outcomes and Assessment, http://www.
abet.org/criterion.html.
[3] Miller, S.J., Doshi, R., Milroy, J.C., and Yock, P.G., Early Experiences in Cross-Disciplinary Education in Biomedical Technology Innovation at Stanford University, Journal of Engineering Education, Vol. 90, No.
4, 2001, pp. 585588.
[4] Banzaert, A., Lokuge, P.D.H., Smith, A., and Susnowitz, S., The
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[5] Ochs, J.B., Watkins, T.A., and Boothe, B.W., Creating a Truly
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[7] Thornton, K, Djamshidi, S., and Barbe, D., VentureAccelerator
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an Entrepreneurial Framework at Tri-State University, 8th Annual Meeting of the National Collegiate Inventor and Innovators Alliance, San Jose,
Calif., March 2004.
[12] Many of these programs were overviewed at the Roundtable on
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2003. Posters may be downloaded from http://ree.stanford.edu/reeusa03/.
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April 2005
[16] Cresswell, J., Plano Clark, V.L., Gutmann, M.L., and Hanson,
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AUTHORS BIOGRAPHIES
Sven G. Biln received the B.S. degree from The Pennsylvania
State University in 1991 and the M.S.E. and Ph.D. degrees from
the University of Michigan in 1993 and 1998, respectively. In January 2000, he joined Penn State as an assistant professor in Engineering Design and Electrical Engineering. Dr. Biln is the Design
Curriculum Coordinator in the Engineering Design Program
within SEDTAPP and as such is responsible for developing, defining, funding, and coordinating the industry-sponsored design projects used in all sections (approx. 1000 students per year) of ED&G
100: Introduction to Engineering Design. Dr. Biln teaches in the
Engineering Entrepreneurship Minor (ENTR430: Entrepreneurship and New Product Development). He is a Co-PI for the
PRESTIGE (Preparing Engineering Students to Work in the
Global Economy) consortium. He has mentored several undergraduate students and teams interested in entrepreneurship. Dr.
Biln is member of IEEE, AIAA, AGU, ASEE, and Sigma Xi.
Address: School of Engineering Design, Technology and Professional Programs, 213N Hammond Building, University Park,
Pennsylvania, 16802; telephone: (814) 863-1526; fax: (814) 8637229; e-mail: sbilen@psu.edu.
April 2005
Elizabeth C. Kisenwether holds a B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from Penn State (1979), and M.S.E.E. degrees from
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1981) and The Johns
Hopkins University (1988). She worked in industry for 11 years
with a large defense contractor, and then co-founded and worked
for five years with a high-tech startup. Since joining Penn State in
1999, Prof. Kisenwether has taught design-focused courses in her
home department as well as the Mechanical, Electrical, and Civil
and Environmental Engineering Departments. Currently she is
the program lead on two NCIIA grants (20022005) and involved in a Kauffman Foundation grant with Smeal College of
Business developing a new Introduction to Entrepreneurship
course. Prof. Kisenwhether also is President and founder of
KidTech, Inc, a non-profit engineering outreach company developing hands-on design and problem-based learning kits and activities for K-12 youth (http://www.kid-tech.org) and is the Chair
of the Entrepreneurship Division of ASEE for 20042005.
Address: School of Engineering Design, Technology and Professional Programs, 213D Hammond Building, University Park,
Pennsylvania, 16802; telephone: (814) 863-1531; fax: (814) 8637229; e-mail: exk13@psu.edu.
Sarah E. Rzasa is the Teaching and Learning Assessment Specialist at the Schreyer Institute for Teaching Excellence at Penn
State. She received her B.A. in Psychology from the University of
Connecticut and her M.S. in Educational Psychology specializing in
Tests and Measurement. She previously served as a research assistant
for Engineering Instructional Services and the Leonhard Center for
the Enhancement of Engineering Education. She is currently a doctoral candidate in the department of Educational Psychology.
Address: Schreyer Institute for Teaching and Learning, 301 Rider
II Building, University Park, Pennsylvania, 16802; telephone: (814)
863-9094; e-mail: ser163@psu.edu.
John C. Wise is the director of Engineering Instructional Services at Penn States College of Engineering. In this capacity, he
provides assistance to faculty members and teaching assistants in
the areas of teaching, learning, and instructional technology. He
also provides educational assessment support for the College of Engineering. He received his B.A. in Liberal Arts from The University of the State of New York and his M.S. and Ph.D. in Instructional
Systems from Penn State.
Address: Engineering Instructional Services, 201 Hammond
Building, University Park, Pennsylvania, 16802; telephone: (814)
865-4016; fax: (814) 865-4021; e-mail: jwise@psu.edu.