Bridgemont President Participating in Entrepreneurship Forum

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Bridgemont Community & Technical College
Contact: Jo Harris, President
jharris@bridgemont.edu
304-734-6601

Bridgemont President Participating in Entrepreneurship Forum

Montgomery, W.V.—Bridgemont’s President, Dr. Jo Harris, is one of over 100 community college presidents who have agreed to become part of the Presidents for Entrepreneurship Forum.

According to NACCE Executive Director Heather Van Sickle, the Presidents for Entrepreneurship Forum is part of NACCE’s response to President Obama’s call to action to advance entrepreneurship and create jobs across the country. NACCE is a founding affiliate of the Startup America Partnership, an alliance of the country’s most innovative entrepreneurs, corporations, universities, foundations, and other leaders, launched at the White House in January 2011 and working to dramatically increase the prevalence and success of America’s entrepreneurs.

The five commitments community college presidents who join the new Forum make are:
1) Develop transparency of community college and community assets, 2) create internal and external teams dedicated to entrepreneurship, 3) increase entrepreneurs’ engagement in community colleges, 4) engage in industry cluster development and 5) create buzz and broad exposure of the college’s commitment to entrepreneurship. "The five commitments were developed based on NACCE’s observations of what was working best on member campuses,” said Van Sickle. "After observing the entrepreneurship-related activities of our members over a period of years, we started to see commonalities among the more successful institutions,” she said. "The five commitments represent what we see the leading community colleges doing. One of the major things that clearly makes a difference is the commitment by leadership to entrepreneurship. So we want to put something in front of leadership that they can actually commit to. We want to create a national network of institutions sharing these commitments and see what impact that can have on communities.”

Bridgemont, cited as a College of Excellence by the Aspen Institute because of its ranking in the top 10 percent of community colleges nationwide for high retention and graduation rates, awards one-year certificates and two-year associate degrees in many fields including engineering technology, advanced manufacturing, diesel technology, blasting technology, and welding; business and health management; digital design and print communication; dental hygiene, business technology, medical assisting, information technology, and electro-mechanical instrumentation. Customized training on campus or at company sites is available through the workforce development unit. To learn more about Bridgemont, visit www.bridgemont.edu <http://www.bridgemont.edu> or call 304.734.6600 to arrange a campus visit.

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