MCLA Adds New Minor in Entrepreneurship

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NORTH ADAMS, MASS. — Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts recently approved a new minor in entrepreneurship within the Department of Business Administration and Economics. Although many of the classes required for this new minor already are offered at the college, new courses will be added when the program is officially offered in January 2018.

According to Dr. Thomas Whalen, associate professor of business, the entrepreneurship minor may be added to most – if not all – of the majors MCLA offers.

"I cannot think of a single major that cannot be brought into some sort of entrepreneurial endeavor," Whalen said. "For example, someone in education might develop a tutoring center. A chemist, biologist or a physicist might start up a testing lab to develop a new product. One area where you see a lot of innovation is in computer science. They are constantly coming up with new apps and new devices.

"Our thought is that every discipline in the liberal arts can be coupled with an entrepreneurship minor to make that degree more effective," he said.
 
The minor is closely tied to MCLA's design thinking curriculum. Design thinking, a new process for problem-solving that uses methods from traditional science and the humanities, will be part of the new "Principles of Entrepreneurship" course, according to Zachary Feury, project coordinator of the Feigenbaum Leads Initiative at MCLA.



Whalen anticipates that many of those who enroll in the entrepreneurship minor will compete in MCLA’s annual "Innovation and Entrepreneurship Challenge," which first was held in April, thanks to a gift to support entrepreneurship education from Jack and Susy Wadsworth. At this inaugural competition, students competed for a $10,000 prize, as well as mentoring and networking opportunities to assist them in pushing their idea closer to realization.

Courses for this new minor include "Introduction to Leadership," "Principles of Entrepreneurship," "Marketing," "Accounting for Entrepreneurs," "Small Business Entrepreneurship" and a "Entrepreneurial Studies Seminar" capstone course.


For more information, go to www.mcla.edu.

 


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Macksey Updates on Eagle Street Demo and Myriad City Projects

By Tammy DanielsiBerkshires Staff

The back of Moderne Studio in late January. The mayor said the city had begun planning for its removal if the owner could not address the problems. 
NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The Moderne Studio building is coming down brick by brick on Eagle Street on the city's dime. 
 
Concerns over the failing structure's proximity to its neighbor — just a few feet — means the demolition underway is taking far longer than usual. It's also been delayed somewhat because of recent high winds and weather. 
 
The city had been making plans for the demolition a month ago because of the deterioration of the building, Mayor Jennifer Macksey told the City Council on Tuesday. The project was accelerated after the back of the 150-year-old structure collapsed on March 5
 
Initial estimates for demolition had been $190,000 to $210,000 and included asbestos removal. Those concerns have since been set aside after testing and the mayor believes that the demolition will be lower because it is not a hazardous site.
 
"We also had a lot of contractors who came to look at it for us to not want to touch it because of the proximity to the next building," she said. "Unfortunately time ran out on that property and we did have the building failure. 
 
"And it's an unfortunate situation. I think most of us who have lived here our whole lives and had our pictures taken there and remember being in the window so, you know, we were really hoping the building could be safe."
 
Macksey said the city had tried working with the owner, who could not find a contractor to demolish the building, "so we found one for him."
 
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