A.G. Edwards Inc., the St. Louis-based national investment firm, will establish the A.G. Edwards Visiting Professorship in Entrepreneurship at the University, it was jointly announced by Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton and Robert L. Bagby, chairman and chief executive officer of A.G. Edwards.
The donation also will serve as a matching grant to encourage additional support for WUSTL’s numerous entrepreneurship initiatives, such as student businesses, course development, research, and scholarships and internships.
“We are delighted that this distinguished, nationally renowned firm has committed so generously to the advancement of entrepreneurship at Washington University,” Wrighton said. “The professorship will provide a significant boost to our Universitywide initiative.”
“This commitment to Washington University is another step in our company’s overall efforts to enhance financial and economic education in our community,” Bagby said. “The visiting professorship will be a key component in the University’s efforts to promote and develop a strong entrepreneurial culture across its campus and educate future generations of entrepreneurs, both in the St. Louis region and beyond.”
The professorship will bring leading scholars from around the country for a concentrated time period to teach, mentor, conduct seminars, advise on curriculum and engage in activities that will include a broader reach to academic and business communities.
The A.G. Edwards professors will be selected for their knowledge and expertise in key areas such as curriculum, teaching, career services, research and technology transfer.
Just three years old, the entrepreneurship program at WUSTL initially was powered by the generosity of Robert and Julie Skandalaris and gained University-wide momentum with a major grant from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.
Because entrepreneurship efforts have taken hold throughout the seven schools within the University, there is an increasing swell of interest among faculty members and students for new programs to teach entrepreneurship and also to establish startups that blend disciplinary focuses with business expertise.
Other key activities that are in place to promote a strong entrepreneurial presence include: establishing a national volunteer council that helps determine strategies to sustain the initiative; the teaching of the subject by more than 60 faculty members; offering new courses that include elements of entrepreneurship; creating collaborations between schools, especially in the burgeoning field of social entrepreneurship; creating a research center that provides competitive grants to fund faculty research projects that address the subject; and supporting new student organizations for entrepreneurship to bring together like-minded students from all areas of the University.
Many of these specific programs and startup businesses operate under the Skandalaris Center for Entrepreneurial Studies in the John M. Olin School of Business.
One of the most impressive examples of entrepreneurial collaboration is the Center for Research on Innovation and Entrepreneurship, housed in the School of Law.
The center provides law students with unique opportunities to work with intellectual property (IP) counsel and give early stage legal advice to innovators — both within the University and in the wider community.
Law students learn to collaborate in interdisciplinary experiential learning activities with students from the School of Medicine, the business school, the Department of Biomedical Engineering in the School of Engineering & Applied Science, the George Warren Brown School of Social Work and in Arts & Sciences. They also learn to provide IP and business formation legal services to clients who might otherwise not have access to competent legal counsel.
“All these developments are critical in spreading entrepreneurial opportunities for faculty and students; however, the A.G. Edwards Visiting Professorship in Entrepreneurship will be the hallmark of the initiative, and its matching grant will undoubtedly create vital new support for the future,” Wrighton said.