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The Burton D. Morgan Foundation Awards Hiram College $2 million

1/25/2008

The Burton D. Morgan Foundation will provide $2 million to help Hiram College build its new Entrepreneurship Center.
  
The Burton D. Morgan Entrepreneurship Center will be housed in a new residence hall to create a learning community for students who someday hope to start their own businesses. 
  
“The Burton D. Morgan Foundation is committed to supporting collegiate entrepreneurship in Northeast Ohio in order to strengthen the pipeline of students who can help transform the regional economy,” Morgan Foundation President Deborah D. Hoover said.

 “We’re obviously quite pleased that The Burton D. Morgan Foundation chose to support our effort to create hands-on learning experiences beyond the classroom,” Hiram President Thomas V.  Chema said.

The building, which will house 102 students in the dormitory area, is under construction and scheduled for student move-in before the fall semester begins in August. The non-residence-hall part of the $7.6 million complex will include a tiered-50 seat classroom, an E-incubator and a suite for an entrepreneur-in-residence.

Students expressing an interest in entrepreneurship will be given first preference for housing in the new residential living center.   

From the time the building opens, “the Burton D. Morgan Entrepreneurship Center will be the cornerstone for infusing an entrepreneurial spirit into the campus environment,”  Chema said. 
 
This is the second major grant Hiram college has received from The Burton D. Morgan Foundation in 15 months.

In November 2006, the Portage County college received a $1 million grant as part of NEOCEP – the Northeast Ohio Collegiate Entrepreneurship Program.  NEOCEP, a five-year effort to bring an entrepreneurial mindset to liberal arts campuses in this area, is a joint effort of the Morgan Foundation and the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation of Kansas City, Mo.

Hiram is using that NEOCEP grant to promote a number of endeavors, including new classes and visiting entrepreneurs. At the beginning of the fall semester, about 8 percent of the student body was enrolled in entrepreneurship classes.

Hoover believes the new entrepreneurship center and residence hall will complement NEOCEP. 

“We believe that the juxtaposition of the Burton D. Morgan Entrepreneurship Center and the entrepreneurship residential learning community will present unique opportunities for Hiram students to pursue their ideas both inside and outside the classroom,” she said. “This structure will create a richer and more meaningful educational experience for students and may even lead to synergies of ideas and business ventures.”

She added that research has shown that students who participate in residential learning communities earn higher grades and graduate at higher rather than students in traditional dorm settings.

The Hiram grant is the first time in several years that The Burton D. Morgan Foundation has funded a major capital project.   The Foundation is not generally funding building projects at this time, Hoover said, but Foundation trustees viewed the Hiram entrepreneurship center as a unique opportunity.