Centers | Salem State University

Bertolon School of Business in the summer.

Center For Entrepreneurship

From the Director:

Welcome to the Salem State University Center for Entrepreneurship, where we help you make your dreams a reality.

This is a place where you can float your ideas past peers and faculty for feedback, direction and suggestion.
This is a place where you can propose programs, projects, research agendas, and innovations related to business.
This is a place where we honor innovative research, practitioner-focused learning, and impactful community projects.
This is a place where things happen!

Please join our community and attend our events. You'll be glad you did, and so will we!

Dr. James Gu, Director

978.542.6660

What We Do:

The Salem State University Center for Entrepreneurship links the Bertolon School of Business, the College of Arts and Sciences, the College of Education, and the College of Human Services. Our mission is to encourage and support creativity and innovation across the campus community through entrepreneurial programs and activities.

We believe that the economic future of our local community rests firmly both on the businesses that abound in this area and on the new ventures that Salem State students and others will establish here. Our mission is to support those business ventures and the academic, commercial, governmental, and not-for-profit groups that work with them through educational research and consulting efforts in order to sustain and encourage entrepreneurial activity throughout the community.

We recognize that not every entrepreneur launches a business, and not every company founder studied business. We are here to link your passion with your practice and provide programming and resources for you to develop tools that will help make you successful – in whatever path you choose.

Students: Find out how to turn your passion into a profitable career through academics, networking, and our technical support. Come to our networking events and our non-credit workshops, join our student entrepreneurship organizations, and connect to our other programs. Sign up for our mentoring program that pairs you with an alumni business owner or a local business. Consider taking a special entrepreneurship course designed for non-business students. Investigate an entrepreneurship minor.

Faculty: Come to us for help integrating entrepreneurship into your courses or for help connecting your research interests to partners in our network. We can provide workshops, course materials, faculty grants, networking opportunities, research assistance, and a robust amount of other assistance to you. We will connect you with a guest lecturer, a research partner, an internship site, or a teaching idea.

Community Members: If you are an entrepreneur and want to connect to our faculty and students, we can help make that happen. Our faculty engage with you in a wide variety of ways – from designing consulting projects that delivered over $1 million of no-cost professional services to the community in the 2016-2017 academic year to facilitating student internship placements and action research projects.

Programs We Sponsor:

For Faculty:

Di Palma Family Faculty Excellence Awards in Entrepreneurship Teaching, Research, and Community Project
First Year Seminar Creativity and Innovation Project Grants
Faculty Classroom Learning Modules
Faculty Entrepreneurship Research Grant
Faculty Entrepreneurship and Innovation Research Roundtable
Faculty Entrepreneurship Teaching Workshop

For Students:

Katzman Family Student Entrepreneurship Scholars
Student Entrepreneur Co-Working Space access and support
Student Entrepreneurship Research and Competition Grants
Student Experiential Work Placements at the Massachusetts Small Business Development Center
Speaking To You: Alumni Entrepreneur Speaker Series

Student Organizations we Support:

S.A.I.L. (Student Association for Innovation and Leadership)
Salem State University College DECA Chapter
Entrepreneurial Toastmasters at Salem State University

Academic Concentration and Minor

Link to BSBA Entrepreneurship curriculum page
Link to BSB Entrepreneurship Minor page

External Organizations and Agencies we partner with:

•   Enterprise Center http://enterprisectr.org/

•   Entrepreneurship for All http://eforall.org/

•   Massachusetts Small Business Development Center (MSBDC) http://sbdc.salemstate.edu/

•   Massachusetts Office of Business Development http://www.mass.gov/hed/economic/eohed/bd/

•   North Shore Chamber of Commerce http://www.northshorechamber.org/

•   North Shore InnoVentures http://nsiv.org/

•   North Shore Workforce Investment Board http://northshorewib.com/

•   Salem Chamber of Commerce http://www.salem-chamber.org/

Center For International Business and Economic Studies

The Center for International Business and Economic Studies (CIBES) is structured to “serve as a resource center for business organizations and the community at large,” to assist the Bertolon School of Business and Salem State in “preparing students for careers in a global economy,” and to provide “an environment sensitive to a diverse population,” as quoted in the missions of both the school and the university. CIBES has a two-fold mission. It develops and promotes international business and economics academic programs and curricula. It also assists small- to mid-sized businesses in the region in exporting their products and services to other countries and/or importing what they need.

The following objectives are being pursued by the center: Respond to the need for internationalization of the business curricula by developing and promoting international business- and economics-related courses and programs. This action coincides with public mandates reflected in AACSB International, the U.S. Department of Education and the Presidential Council on International Education and Languages recommendations.

Act as a resource center for the small- to mid-sized businesses in the North Shore area interested in exporting their products and services to other countries, and/or importing from foreign nations

Stimulate awareness of global business and economic activities in the region and at Salem State by sponsoring seminars, workshops and other related activities

Encourage exchange and foreign studies programs for students and faculty in business administration and associated fields in concert with the Center for International Education.

Develop a working relationship with local, national and international public and private organizations

Encourage relevant research that will enhance consultation with private and public organizations

For additional information, please contact James (Jian) Gu, professor and executive director.