April 26, 2023
Crisp's Yeager facilitates classes that assist community partners
This semester, Dr. Emily Yeager, the incoming interim director of the Crisp Small Business Resource Center, taught RCSC4121/6121 Tourism Planning and Entrepreneurship, a service-learning course that aims to assist community partners in economic development projects that focus on leveraging tourism and recreation assets in their communities.
The class worked on a feasibility study for a water trail in Beaufort County that would ultimately be accessed as an online digital interactive map for visitors and residents to use. An ever-growing advisory group from Beaufort County consisting of a variety of stakeholders from communities across the county helped develop the scope of the project, provided feedback on the project’s progress, and helped provide a field experience for the class to visit some tourism and recreation assets in Washington, North Carolina.
The students’ project deliverables consist of a technical report containing various resources from grant funding opportunities to a county-wide tourism and recreation entrepreneur database. They will present their final report to the advisory group on May 2nd.
Dr. Dennis Barber III, acting director of the Miller School, says this work is a perfect example of how the Crisp Center can help ECU students gain real-world experiences by collaborating with local, small businesses.
“The Crisp Center is well positioned to be the small business outreach arm of the College of Business and the Miller School of Entrepreneurship. These types of projects expose ECU students, from all across campus to life in rural, eastern North Carolina,” said Barber. “The hope is that we can address some of the brain drain we are experiencing in our region.”
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- Miller School of Entrepreneurship