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 From Page 1 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. GET THE DAILY IN YOUR INBOX Subscribe to one of our e-newsletters THE DAILY BRIEFING BREAKING NEWS AROUND ANN ARBOR MICHIGAN FOOTBALL DAILY ARTS WEEKLY WEEK IN REVIEW Go to michigandaily.com/subscribe