CORNELL UNIVERSITY'S ENTREPRENEURSHIP EDUCATION & OUTREACH PROGRAM: EVALUATION AND PROPOSAL; A WHITE PAPER

Abstract

This paper is an evaluation of the two year experience of Cornell University's Entrepreneurship Education & Outreach (EEO) program and its efforts to disseminate and administer small business outreach training with the Premier FastTrac entrepreneurial curriculum. This paper describes EEO's origin, purpose, and mission, and an evaluation of knowledge gained from the fourteen month experience with the FastTrac entrepreneurship training program ending January 1999. There have been difficulties for EEO to achieve original expectations that were formed in Summer of 1996. We learned that a critical component of a successful outreach program of this nature is to have supportive cooperation by local as well as state level stakeholders in economic and community development. Experience revealed significant obstacles and barriers to build and sustain these critical components in some communities. A proposal to develop a statewide network of supportive partnerships is offered at the end of this paper.