Barber helps launch rural entrepreneurship certificate

In July of 2022, the United States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship (USASBE) launched its inaugural Rural Entrepreneurship Education Certificate. Dr. Dennis Barber III, acting director of the Miller School of Entrepreneurship, co-developed the program along with the Rural Research Fellows. The program, conducted in Urbania, Italy, was a great success and the CEO of USASBE, Julienne Shields, reported that the participants and USASBE board members were very impressed. There is a potential for another program during the summer of 2023.

USASBE’s Rural Entrepreneurship Education Certification was designed to introduce educators and economic developers to the expanding research and efforts to bolster rural ecosystems.  With proper understanding, the rural context has rich opportunity to apply frameworks for constructing meaningful research, educational programs, and effective local programming.  The Rural Entrepreneurship Education Certificate was an intense, immersive program designed to challenge entrepreneurship educators to see the rural context with a new appreciation for the complexity and opportunity inherent in comparatively isolated or depressed ecosystems.  These ecosystems are unique and poised for renewed invigoration and the increased acceptance of online work.

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