Total-immersion business ed

"[The informal curriculum] gives students the opportunity to learn without the pressure of getting an A," says Mr. Craig.

Currently 289 students are enrolled in Weatherford and 89 are in the Hinman CEO program. Though students do not pay additional tuition to enroll in either program (both were funded by donations), they must apply to be accepted in the program.

For Shawn Cole, a freshman business major at Oregon State University, the opportunity was too good to pass up.

"Even when you come back to your room after class, you are still in a learning environment," Cole says. "Outside the formal curriculum there are a lot of opportunities to talk about your ideas and network with other people; things that you wouldn't necessarily be talking about in other environments."

Carl Hickerson agrees. "I have always wanted to be able to work for myself," says the freshman business major. "I wanted to be around business-minded people and to have the chance to be approached with business opportunities."

Just six weeks into his freshman year, Hickerson has launched a business selling deregulated utility services as a result of connections he made at Weatherford.

Not all academics are fans of such programs. Some worry that student-entrepreneurs who get too involved in their businesses are less likely to finish college.

Others characterize the programs as narrow, and say they don't afford enough time and space for the exploration of other disciplines.

When the Hinman CEOs program was first launched, there were concerns about students staying in school, Thornton admits.

"We were worried because we were helping students start companies that were turning into successful businesses," Thornton says. "We did not want them dropping out of school."

But both Thornton and Craig say they believe the opposite is true. "We have had students pull back or take a break from their businesses to focus on school," Craig adds. "A lot of our students are in learning mode so they can get the tools to focus on business later on."

Supporters of such programs see them as an ideal opportunity to combine a business education with other requirements.

"Critics may argue that the programs are too narrowly focused," says Scott Dawson, dean of the School of Business Administration at Portland State University. "But these students still have to fulfill their degree requirements and that means they will be taking courses with liberal arts majors as well as business majors.

"Being part of these programs is a choice, just like joining a fraternity or a sorority," he adds.

Meanwhile, Robertson is preparing for the next stage of his career: taking an invention to market.

Working with Jason Volk, a business major in the Hinman CEOs program, he created Alertus Technologies, a next-generation emergency warning system.

"We met through Hinman. Jason had the idea but was having trouble getting it implemented, so we decided to work together," Robertson says.

Later this month Volk and Robertson are traveling to Washington, D.C., to present their invention to the federal government.

"This could provide the funding to bring the product to the market," says Robertson. "This type of real-world experience that we are getting through Hinman is priceless."

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