The Power of Partnership
Ji Mi Choi, associate vice president, Knowledge Enterprise Development, Arizona State University
At Arizona State University, we serve well over 110,000
degree-seeking students—some on campus across five metropolitan Phoenix
locations and increasingly, off campus via digital immersion programs.
Developing and delivering excellence with inclusion and diversity at
scale is a requirement across ASU, for academic and non-academic
programming alike. We are often asked how we can continue to grow our
programs with our increasing student body—nearly double in the last ten
years—especially in delivering quality entrepreneurship programming.
This is where collaboration—intensive, intentional collaboration—comes
in. At Entrepreneurship + Innovation (E+I), which I lead, we have
adopted a partnership model, both across the university and in the
greater community as well.
When we create programming, we think
of the impact to the whole person, be they student, faculty, alumni or a
community member. And because we couldn’t possibly have or develop
topical expertise in all facets of our interactions, including being
culturally responsive, technically adept and entrepreneurially savvy, we
depend on our partners.
One example is working with students
in Startup Village, an entrepreneurial living-learning community on the
Polytechnic campus in East Mesa. We rely on the expertise of our
colleagues in University Housing, Student Services, and the
Technological Entrepreneurship and Management academic program, as well
as an E+I staff member devoted to student outreach and engagement in
entrepreneurship. We also leverage multiple resources such as various
maker and creative spaces and programs such as the E+I Venture Devils
program, through which we can provide mentors, training and development
opportunities and tangible resources such as funding, access to legal
help or prototyping facilities.
The E+I team has found that
colleagues from programs ranging from Career Services and Professional
Development to academic divisions such as the College of Liberal Arts
and Sciences share the same goal: provide high-quality, unique
experiences for students.
Here are some key lessons learned in working with partners to deliver programming to students:
Create a regularized convening mechanism to foster visibility and connectivity.
At ASU, we call them E+I Networkshops, and we convene twice a semester
inviting all faculty and staff who work in entrepreneurship. We provide
visibility to each other and to our major initiatives and resources, and
we create a “marketplace” wherein colleagues can ask for support and
receive support in programs, events and other needs.
Share credit.
As an administrative unit, things that we do don’t always “count”
toward our core metrics. For example, while bringing in external funding
to support our programs is important, the type of funding may be more
important to some more than us. Credit for research support, for
example, always goes to the academic unit where the faculty member’s
productivity is more closely aligned with research dollars. And we share
credit in giving top billing to partner units in recognition as well.
Buy in to resources.
One highly effective mechanism that has allowed us to extend our reach
and impact is working across the university to cross-appoint staff
members. We have successfully recruited, cross-appointed and shared
salary costs for staff with academic units with the idea that they gain
access to the full suite of programs and services such as marketing and
events, as well with non-academic units enabling staff to maintain
professional development within one area while pursuing entrepreneurial
development with E+I.
Check first. Myriad
resources abound; we’ve made it a point to seek out partners before we
aim to launch any new program or even consider certain ideas. As an
example, ASU offers robust support for veterans through the Pat Tillman
Veterans Center, so we reached out to our colleagues there to consider
the best way to support veteran student entrepreneurs or active service
or veteran students’ families. They were glad to add a dimension of
programming—entrepreneurship—and we were glad to tap into a community we
are so keenly attuned to serving.
By working with partners, we
create win-win situations, are more targeted in the support we need to
directly deliver versus those we can rely on partners for, and are more
efficient and effective. The same can be said for external partnerships.
We need a place for our students to connect into and continue their
entrepreneurial journey, should they choose to continue the pursuit. So
we work effectively with community-based organizations to engage
experienced mentors, or to market events to students, and other ways to
create high levels of visibility and connectivity, thereby strengthening
the overall ecosystem. Much of this may sound basic, but surprisingly,
many of us want to get moving and get doing, before asking, who might be
good resources and partners for us? Who might have resident expertise
that I can call upon? So perhaps this can serve just as a reminder to
seek out partners before figuring out how to take everything on yourself
or within your unit.