| SFSU Public Affairs Press ReleasePublished by the Public Affairs Office at San Francisco State University, Lakeview Center |
SAN FRANCISO, April 26 ---San Francisco State University's College of Business has received a $100,000 grant from the Kauffman Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership to provide its entrepreneurial students with paid, semester-long internships. The grant, which comes from the Kauffman Entrepreneur Internship Program (KEIP), will allow the College to place 40 undergraduate students per year in Bay Area firms-20 in multimedia businesses and 20 in socially responsible businesses.
"These internships will provide an invaluable opportunity for our students to examine the entrepreneurial process first hand," said College of Business Dean Ray Maghroori. "And, with the recent downturn the economy has taken, our hope is that, in turn, our students will contribute significantly to fledgling companies in these two fields."
"We are pleased and delighted to have SFSU as part of KEIP. This year, we experienced an increase in the number of proposals received for the KEIP grants and are proud to announce that SFSU's College of Business received the Traditional KEIP grant, which places students in for profit companies," said Tony Mendes, Director of College Initiatives for the Kauffman Center. "SFSU's proposal to place entrepreneurial students in multimedia firms and socially responsible businesses takes advantage of two uniqu e sectors of the Bay Area business community. We look forward to a productive partnership in entrepreneurship education."
Students, who will typically work 15 to 20 hours a week, will be asked to identify a specific project-such as marketing initiatives, operations management or quality control-that they will work on during their internship with the host business. Program organizers anticipate that the interns will be paid $2,750 for their semester of work. Host businesses will provide 10 percent of that amount.
"Our students understand the entrepreneurial process," said Connie Marie Gaglio, co-director of the College's Ohrenschall Center for Entrepreneurship. "Now they need to take that understanding and compete in the real world. These internships will help them gain confidence-they'll be like their finishing school."
While the College of Business has sought internships for its budding entrepreneurs for some time, this grant will help the College create a larger pool of potential internship opportunities by funding two part time positions devoted to identifying and recruiting host businesses. In addition, business faculty and MBA students will act as consultants and provide technical assistance to the undergraduate interns.
Established in 1992, The Kauffman Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership is an independent not-for-profit organization funded by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. Ewing Kauffman built a small pharmaceutical firm into a major health company with more than $1 billion in sales at the time of its merger with Merrell Dow. The Kauffman Center, which is based in Kansas City, pursues a vision of accelerating entrepreneurship in America.
With over 5,000 students and 120 faculty members, San Francisco State University's College of Business is one of the largest business colleges in California. The Ohrenschall Center for Entrepreneurship offers SFSU students the opportunity to launch their own business through a competition, funded by a grant from Bay Area businessman Robert F. Ohrenschall that awards office space and support in a local business incubator.
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Last modified May 4, 2001, by Office of Public Affairs