Posted on March 27, 2001 at 3:47 p.m.
BIRMINGHAM, AL — The University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) School of Business has received an $80,000 grant establishing a new internship program that combines the education students receive in the classroom with practical experience that only comes from working in an entrepreneurial setting.
The Kauffman Entrepreneur Internship Program, created by the grant from the Kauffman Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, begins this summer. The program places the best and brightest students in the UAB School of Business with small, Birmingham-area firms, concentrating on high-tech and high-potential growth firms.
Ten students per semester plus 10 each summer, a total of 30 students each year, will be placed in small companies and will use what they have learned in the classroom to contribute to the company. The goal is to help students gain a better understanding of how start-up companies work.
“We see ourselves as an entrepreneurial and innovative business school providing students with the most up-to-date, relevant and exciting education,” said Robert Holmes, Ph.D., dean of the UAB School of Business. “By having a program for placing students in high-tech entrepreneurial firms in the Birmingham Metropolitan area, the students are given another career option to consider along with traditional business careers. The program also helps strengthen our ties to local businesses and to the business incubators in the area, including UAB’s Office for the Advancement of Developing Industries — OADI — and The Entrepreneurial Center in downtown Birmingham.”
While big businesses are important to our economy, Holmes said, entrepreneurs also are significant. “The state needs more entrepreneurs and this program integrates us to an even greater extent into what UAB is doing, creating jobs and companies that are spinning out of UAB research and to other high-growth potential firms in our area.”
Mickey Gee, departmental director of internships for the School of Business, said students have to apply to participate in the program and have to meet certain standards to be considered. Each student works about 12 hours each week in a company and is paid a stipend for their work.
“This is very important,” he said. “Many of our students have to work and cannot participate in unpaid internships. This program gives them the opportunity to experience working in an entrepreneurial setting while continuing to care for their families. Through this program, UAB provides students with the most meaningful and effective entrepreneurship education available. These internships can help them identify both immediate and long-term career goals.”
The Kauffman Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership was established in 1992 by entrepreneur Ewing Marion Kauffman. Kauffman built a small pharmaceutical firm into a major health care company with more than $1 billion in sales at the time of its merger with Merrell Dow in 1989. The Kauffman Center, in Kansas City, Mo., is an independent 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization funded by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. It pursues a vision of accelerating entrepreneurship in America.
“Receiving the Kauffman Center grant is a significant milestone for the School of Business,” Holmes said. “Some of the best business schools in the country participate in this program and we are delighted to receive this grant.”
Companies interested in participating in the program are asked to contact internship director Mickey Gee at (205) 934-8893 or mg@business.uab.edu.