CAPITALIZING ON KNOWLEDGE: Cornell University chemistry students learn from chemical entrepreneurs

At Cornell University, 35 students divided roughly half and half between undergraduate and graduate students are signed up this semester for Chemistry 404, a one-credit course in chemical entrepreneurship. The brain-child of organic chemistry professor Bruce Ganem, the course is the newest among 30 courses in Cornell's Entrepreneurship & Personal Enterprise (EPE) Program. It is also the only one of its kind in a Cornell science department. Cornell does not have an undergraduate business school. So students get bachelor's degrees in the subject partly by taking EPE courses offered in the Schools of Agriculture & Life Sciences, Arts & Sciences, Engineering, Hotel Administration, Human Ecology, Industrial & Labor Relations, and Law. Including Ganem, there are now 15 professors at Cornell who have developed one or more such courses in entrepreneurship. The graduate students in Chem 404 are in both chemistry and life sciences. Most of the undergraduates are chemistry majors. There are also a few ...