Center for Entrepreneurship

Mission

The mission of the Center for Entrepreneurship is to prepare Methodist University students campus-wide to excel in entrepreneurial endeavors, including:

  • adopting an entrepreneurial mindset in any job, industry, or organization
  • starting new businesses
  • becoming successors to existing businesses
  • being “intrapreneurs” in existing businesses

Additionally, we wish to positively impact our business and military community through collaborating, conducting an annual business symposium for leaders in the community, and facilitating internships and job placement of our students. Ultimately, we are preparing our students to build sustainable, innovative, and purposeful businesses.

Goals

  1. To employ the critical thinking process to solve problems and issues facing entrepreneurs and businesses today.
  2. To understand and evaluate the various options for financing entrepreneurial endeavors.
  3. To recognize and distinguish viable opportunities from good ideas and to develop a focus on customers and market needs as a driver for product and service creation.
  4. To identify the types of human, information, and financial resources required for launching and managing new ventures, products, and services.
  5. To understand ways to successfully innovate, avoid the related pitfalls, and study and prepare for the impact of emerging technologies.

Dr. Sid Gautam Scholarship for Entrepreneurs

In the fall of 2013, the Center for Entrepreneurship (CFE) announced a new endowed scholarship for students majoring in entrepreneurship. According to then-CFE Director Marty Cayton, “The scholarship also honors CFE founder Dr. Sid Gautam, whose ideas, business acumen, entrepreneurial spirit, and more than 40 years of engaged service to the Cape Fear region and Methodist University enabled local entrepreneurs and business people to prosper, alumni to succeed, and small businesses in the Fayetteville community to flourish.”

The seed funding for the scholarship was made possible by the late Mr. Robert R. Dunn ’70 of Charlotte, formerly the president and co-founder of The Finley Group, a successful crisis management firm in Charlotte.

In order to be considered for the scholarship, students must major or minor in Entrepreneurship and demonstrate leadership qualities and good citizenship.

The scholarship amount is $3,000 per year.

History of the CFE

Dr. Sid GautamIn 1973, Dr. Sid Gautam (right), who was then chair of the Department of Economics and Business Administration at Methodist College, founded the Center for Entrepreneurship (CFE) with a mission to help entrepreneurs as they explored new frontiers of opportunity while promoting, creating, and preserving wealth.

For the last 40 years, the CFE has recognized more than 300 entrepreneurs: “movers and shakers” from all parts of North Carolina, who believe in America’s free market economy. As a community resource for entrepreneurs, students, minorities, small business owners, and business people in eastern North Carolina, the CFE provides educational experiences, networking opportunities, and recognition through business awards. All CFE programs reflect the depth and breadth of the University’s dedication to help people attain their goals and objectives of becoming the best and brightest in their fields.

At the end of the Spring 2012 semester, Dr. Gautam retired after a 45-year journey as a professor of financial economics at Methodist University.