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Rutgers Business School launches Center for Urban Entrepreneurship & Economic Development
The goal of the leadership of the new Center for Urban Entrepreneurship & Economic Development at Rutgers Business School is to transform the city of Newark into a 24-hour hub: a venue for arts, dining, entertainment, and retail businesses surrounding the campus of the state university.
The first of its kind in the nation, the center, inaugurated October 7, brings together city and state officials, big business, community agencies, entrepreneurs, and academics in a public-private partnership that will serve as a model for other urban universities. It is also among the programs that are helping Rutgers Business School to attract top faculty, such as Jeffrey A. Robinson, a sought-after expert and commentator on entrepreneurship and urban economic development, who joined the school’s faculty this semester.
With its flagship initiative in Newark, the center will incorporate resources from the main campuses of Rutgers. Among the center’s partners are the New Jersey Economic Development Authority, the Office of the Mayor of the City of Newark, the city’s Housing Authority, and the Newark-based Brick City Development Corporation.
Leading the center is dt ogilvie, associate professor of business strategy at Rutgers Business School and the center’s founding director. Ogilvie has been involved in the Newark community and various economic development efforts since she joined the business school in 1994, including being a member of the steering committee for OpportunityNewark, a program of the Newark Alliance, and the board of directors of the Brick City Development Corporation.
The center’s first economic development initiative is a partnership with the new Profeta Urban Investment Foundation at Rutgers Business School, Inc., a private, not-for-profit equity-investment fund established by an initial $1-million contribution by Paul V. Profeta, president of the national real estate management firm bearing his name. The fund will provide seed capital along with debt from publicly interested lending institutions (such as BCDC, City National Bank, and PNC Bank) to launch new urban businesses and expand existing stage-one urban enterprises. The fund’s initial focus is on dining, entertainment, and retail businesses in the University Heights section of Newark.
Robinson, the center’s assistant director and an assistant professor of management and global business, is the recipient of the Aspen Institute’s 2007 Faculty Pioneer Rising Star Award, for his research, teaching, and service activities at the intersection of business and society. Among his areas of expertise are the intersection of wealth, race, and new venture creation, and the role of social entrepreneurship and social venture incubators in economic development.
Support from Rutgers President Richard L. McCormick’s Faculty Diversity Cluster Hiring Initiative will enable Rutgers Business School to further augment its faculty in the area of urban entrepreneurship and economic development.
The center’s research focuses on urban entrepreneurship (job creation, business development, community entrepreneurship), technology entrepreneurship (technology transfer, incubators, technology clusters, leveraging university patents, green business), social entrepreneurship (social problem-solving, social-purpose business, social investments), and international entrepreneurship (institutions and entrepreneurial activity, small and medium enterprises and developing nations, entrepreneurship towards economic development).
Michael R. Cooper, dean of Rutgers Business School, said that Rutgers is proud to contribute to the city’s revitalization. “Rutgers University, including Rutgers Business School, is a vital part of Newark. We are delighted that the business school’s rebirth, which includes the new Center for Urban Entrepreneurship & Economic Development, as well as a new state-of-the-art headquarters scheduled to open at 1 Washington Park in fall 2009 – coincides with Newark’s own renaissance.”
Cooper said the new center dovetails with his goal of “delivering cutting-edge, multidisciplinary curricula that combine the mix of business, science, and technology skills required by today’s leading corporations.”
With this focus in mind, ogilvie and Robinson designed a graduate-level course, “Special Topics in Urban Entrepreneurship I and II,” in which MBA students will review projects for future funding, serving as a de facto due-diligence team.
“Students will act as advisors, or business consultants to the businesses funded by our venture fund,” ogilvie said. She said that the center’s emphasis on the urban environment, with its challenges of infrastructure, abandoned properties, and frequent loss of an educated work force sets it apart from other programs in the United States.