Monday, August 1, 2011
The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com T O
'U' to offer new entrepreneurship master's
Degree combines
engineering and
business curriculum
By MARISA WINTER
For the Daily
For master's students look-
ing to study entrepreneurship,
they will no longer have to look
any further than the University.
Beginning this fall, the College of
Engineering will be collaborating
with the Ross School of Business
to offer a professional master's
degree in entrepreneurship.
Tim Faley, Business School
professor and managing director
at the University's Zell Lurie Insti-
tute for Entrepreneurial Studies,
said the collaboration will bridge
ASSAULTS
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Berchtold. However, she said she
couldn't discuss any details of the
Bureau's involvement.
She could, however, say AAPD
is still the primary department on
the cases, and the FBI has no inten-
tion of taking over.
AAPD Lt. Renee Bush said the
FBI will be assisting the Ann Arbor
police along with other depart-
ments like the Michigan State
Police, adding they were asked to
be involved because of the circum-
stances of the cases.
"These are unusual assaults
happening to women ... We can use
all resources," Bush said.
AAPD has received more than
250 tips regarding these assaults,
and they have officers investigating
each one, Bush said.
At the AAPD press conference,
Jones said he greatly appreciated
the community's support and con-
cern over the spate of assaults.
"I'm about to begin a conversa-
tion I believe no law enforcement
officer would ever want to give his
community," he said. "We have a
predator or predators operating in
our community."
Over the course of the 25Anin-
ute press conference, Jones reiter-
ated that last sentence two or three
times, as well as fielded questions
from reporters and addressed
together science and business to
develop additional methods of
innovation.
"It will satisfy a huge need
for technologists who want to be
innovative or are interested in
commercialization of science and
commercialization in general,"
Faley said.
He said engineering and busi-
ness alumni fueled the idea for
the new program because many
believe one specialization is no
longer sufficient to be successful
in the working world.
"Traditional education ave-
nues no longer work in a dynamic
world," Faley said. "Skills in all
areas fill the gap the 'U' isn't offer-
ing. It's not an MBA, which trains
a student how to be a business per-
son, and it's not a science degree.
It's the white space in between
that creates a bridge between sci-
ence and business."
Faley added the program was
put into motion in response to both
student interest and the demand"
from major companies looking for
students who had both technical
and business experience.
"We were overwhelmed at
how hungry engineering students
were to learn business," he said.
"An increasing company demand,
for example from Google and
Cisco Systems, would ask for stu-
dents to become engineers, but
they would be much more effec-
tive in a corporation if they knew
how science would be commer-
cialized."
The Zell Lurie Institute for
Entrepreneurial Studies - which
also supports TechArb, the Uni-
versity's entrepreneurial hub -
backed the creation of the master's
degree. Faley said he hopes the
Zell Institute will later expand the
experiment across campus and
help form a similar program with
the Law School.
David Munson, dean of engi-
neering, said the University is
unique because it has both nation-
ally renowned business and engi-
neering school, adding that the
joint effort will produce one of the
best programs in the country.
"The melding of the business
and tech world will generate a lot
more activity in southeast Michi-
gan and throughout the country
and world," Munson said.
Munson added that a business
background can benefit an engi-
neering student in many practical
ways as they embark upon a career
in the corporate world.
"Students have a lot of ideas
for engineering companies to get
formed but not enough business
knowledge or experience to start
a company on their own," Munson
said. "Alumni in engineering were
pushing very hard for additional
programming. Alumni who took
courses in business and are in the
working world had a clear advan-
tage by knowing about business."
Doug Neal, managing director
of the Center for Entrepreneur-
ship, said the degree was created
out of a demand for students seek-
ing to acquire the skills necessary
to start their own businesses.
"(The program was created)
out of a market need for graduate
students looking for an opportu-
nity to get education experience -
and quickly grow startup ideas,"
Neal said.
There is currently a nine-
credit academic program for
undergraduate engineering stu-
dents.
topics like how budget cuts have
impacted AAPD's enforcement,
the victims' descriptions of the
attackers and the increasing need'
for people to be cautious and prag-
matic when walking alone at night.
In response to a query about
whether the recent cutbacks on the
force had hamstrung the depart-
ment's ability to investigate the
assaults, Jones admitted the series
of assaults has taken away "our
sense of safety in our community."
He denied, however, the cuts
had any effect on the investigation,
stood behind the police's approach
to finding the one or two attackers
and lauded the force's investigative
partnerships with local agencies.
He added that the force has devot-
ed 15 officers to the recent assault
cases as well.
"It's still a great town and it is
very upsetting, but we're not in a
vacuum here and ... this is the type
of occasion that we have to rise to
the highest level," Jones said.
In the ongoing search for sus-
pects since the first assault - in
which a woman was pulled into
a dark area but then escaped near
Community High School on Divi-
sion Street on July 151- the Univer-
sity's Department of Public Safety
has also "committed all its resourc-
es" to the investigation.
The department has been rear-
ranging officers' schedules and
postponing their vacations in an
effort to strengthen security on and
around Central Campus, according
to DPS Lt. Robert Neumann.
DPS released a statement on
July 27 saying they will be working
with AAPD to solve the cases even
though they occurred off-campus.
Additionally, both DPS and AAPD
are amping up uniformed police
patrol of Central Campus, the
statement said.
Along with increased secu-
rity measures, the department has
undertaken efforts to encourage
incoming freshmen to be aware
of their surroundings, to walk in
pairs at night and to avoid talking
on their cell phones when walking
alone, Neumann said.
As part of its crime awareness
program, DPS has also pledged to
"talk about this string of incidents
specifically" during freshmen ori-
entation sessions, Neumann added.
In an interview after the press
conference, City Council member
Sabra Briere (D-Ward 1) said find-
ing the attackers and educating
students is important because the
assaults have deprived the commu-
nity of a sense of security.
"Crimes like this make us all
insecure," Briere said. "We stop
walking around at night. We stop
going to parties. We stop feeling
like we can do what we want to do.
It makes us all question our secu-
rity."
Crime Stoppers of Michigan is
offering a $1,000 reward for a tip
that leads to an arrest.
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