Carol Reeves Faculty pictureCarol Reeves, Associate Vice-Provost for Entrepreneurship and Professor and Cupp Applied Professor of Entrepreneurship, gave a presentation at the Teaching and Faculty Support Center (TFSC) Winter Symposium titled “Building a Mosaic: How an Innovative Curriculum Can Draw on and Strengthen the Arkansas Ecosystem.”  In this presentation she outlined keys to curriculum Innovation.

She emphasized the need to innovate for the specific task at hand with the group of students or the resources that are available.  Just as an orange tree will not thrive in Arkansas, innovative ideas that have worked for other areas or other students may not work for you.  However, this does not mean that innovative ideas and methods will not work at all, we just need to plant apple trees in Arkansas!

Professor Reeves’ Keys to Curriculum Innovation are:

  1. Be in a university that supports new ideas rather than kills them.
  2. Involve key players, regardless of their home departments.
  3. Find a way to generate interest, excitement, and forward momentum.
  4. Simulate the real world in the classroom.
  5. Pair extremely high expectations with strong support.
  6. Never give up! Never give up! Never give up!

These keys to innovation helped Professor Reeves to create Students Acquiring Knowledge through Enterprise (SAKE) which allows students to manage businesses and compete at local and national levels. Over the past 10 years, her teams have won more than $1.3 million in cash and prizes, started six high-growth businesses, and raised over $12.5 million in investments and grants. She was named one of the 10 most powerful Women Entrepreneurs by Fortune magazine in 2011.

This content was developed from a presentation by Carol Reeves (Associate Vice-Provost for Entrepreneurship and Professor and Cupp Applied Professor of Entrepreneurship) which was sponsored by the The Wally Cordes Teaching and Faculty Support Center (TFSC) at the University of Arkansas.

The presentation can be downloaded and viewed as a PDF:Carole Reeves – Building a Mosaic How an Innovative Curriculum Can Draw on and Strengthen the Arkansas Ecosystem

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