This is my latest post for Flyover Geeks. It’s about the rise of business incubators within universities. Find the whole article here.

Now, I’m sure hordes of grumpy old men in tweed jackets collectively carp about the increasing focus on commerce in the classroom, about the decay of classic liberal arts dogma about Truth and Beauty, and all that jazz. What I say to that: grow up. Fact: for as long as a college degree is a prerequisite to entering into the workforce, the two will be linked. Instead of bemoaning the fall of “classic intellectual pursuit” (whatever…) I propose a more pragmatic approach. If you can’t beat the entrepreneurial spirit out of your students, foster it. Make the university a resource for more than just abstruse theory, a repository of dusty grey scholars of neo-Marxist hermeneutics or post-structuralist creative heuristics, or whatever else scholarly work consists of. Leverage the enthusiasm of students to, if nothing else, augment existing endowment funds.


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