Community College Entrepreneurship: Integration to Incubation

Additional partners: William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan.

To address Jordan’s need for expanded economic opportunity and allow for a more diversified business environment, Washtenaw Community College, Al Quds College in Jordan, and the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan are partnering to implement strategies for developing an entrepreneurial mindset among a young generation of Jordanian community college students and to support and assist them in launching successful businesses.

The partnership will focus on building the institutional capacity of Al Quds and develop faculty who will have the knowledge, skills, and training that will result in an improved ability to teach and advise students, recent graduates, and parents/influencers in critical components of entrepreneurial and enterprise development. The partnership plans to establish a business incubator at Al Quds to provide Al Quds students and recent graduates with the tools necessary to open and maintain a small business. In addition, the partnership will create a clear pathway to entrepreneurship as a means of self-employment and career development for Al Quds students.

At the core of the partnership is the creation of an educational approach that will integrate the vocational and technical skills that students are pursuing at Al Quds with business skills, practical experience, and access to a support network. As a result, students will not only master a specialty but also will understand how to establish, operate, and grow small businesses. The partnership will develop both human and institutional capacity through activities geared toward developing and promoting an entrepreneurial mindset, prepare faculty to integrate entrepreneurship principles into their occupational curricula, build a pipeline for the proposed business incubator, and support the development of networks between students, parents/influencers, entrepreneurs, and business support services within the community.