The NACCE Fellows’ are on the job!

So, what is this NACCE Fellows program again and what does it mean to you? Here’s the scoop:

NACCE has awarded its first-ever one-year fellowships that will include applied research in entrepreneurship education and will improve NACCE’s educational offerings to members. The areas of focus will be Curriculum and Training and Community Outreach.

Let us introduce ourselves:

The Curriculum Fellows are:

Christine Mollenkopf-Pigsley, Dakota County Technical College

Amy Valente, Cayuga Community College

The Community Outreach Fellows are: 

Gary Muller, Catawba Valley Community College

Tim Putnam, North Iowa Area Community College

The Fellows program is a way in which practitioners from the NACCE membership base can contribute to NACCE and their members in a meaningful way. As with many initial programs, the Fellows initiative has ambitious goals and objectives. The NACCE Fellows will provide direct support to two initiatives: NACCE Regional Summits and Sam’s Club Shared Vision for Small Business.  

The NACCE Regional Summits are: Rio Saldo College, California’s Economic and Workforce Development’s Business and Entrepreneurship Program, Miami Dade College, Catawba Valley Community College, Ridgewater College and New River Community and Technical Colleges .

The Sam’s Club Shared Vision for Small Business schools are:

Fox Valley Technical College, Long Beach City College, North Seattle Community College and South Mountain Community College.

As we work with each of the colleges initiatives we will report out what we are seeing discovering and learning as we go.  We will be collecting data from these projects and will try to make it meaningful.  The other area we’ll be playing close attention to is how colleges are working to fulfill the Presidents for Entrepreneurship Pledge.   

We are all are very excited about this NACCE Fellows opportunity and at the same time overwhelmed with both the gratitude of having been selected to take on this role and the responsibility to make this a meaningful investment for the stakeholders. The NACCE organization is always evolving and trying to find ways to better support their base and to bring to its members meaningful programs and content. If the Fellows program is successful in doing this, their value grows through increased new members and retention of their existing clients. 

Gary and Tim will be posting updates, insights and findings on the NACCE Fellows Blog. We hope to provide insight from behind the scenes and provide a variety of perspectives from the field as the year goes on. Finally, we want to hear back from you, the NACCE Nation, about what’s on your mind, what questions you have, and how the Fellows can provide meaningful information and insight to you. 

Christine Mollenkopf-Pigsley, Christine.pigsley@dctc.edu

Gary Muller, gmuller@cvcc.edu

Tim Putnam, putnatim@niacc.edu

Amy Valente,  amy.valente@cayuga-cc.edu