A Humane Entrepreneurial Oriented Professor

Saturday, August, 1, 2020 by Dr. Ayman El Tarabishy

The global pandemic has allowed academia to change fundamentally, and within that, there is a chance for educators to evolve.

Estimated at the end of last year, ICSB foresaw a dramatic change in the role of the “educator,” be that for entrepreneurial and small business studies or other subjects. This global reshape has led professors and lecturers to confront the barriers posed by responses to the worldwide health crisis. Professor Hooi Den Huan of Singapore described today’s environment as R.U.D.E or rapidly changing, uncertain, dynamic, and engaging. ICSB focused this understanding of our modern environment on educators, expanding that the instructors themselves will evolve from being “bearers of information” to being R.U.D.E. In rapidly changing their knowledge base to grasp new theories and their applications, they will steer the education ship to a safe port of reflection and learning, while mastering engagement. Educators will do more than teach, entertain, and educate. However, they will engage their learners in the real journey of reflection, double-loop learning, and personal growth.

This assumption proves to be more accurate every day. We need to confront the reality that our current pedagogy, of entrepreneurship specifically, must change if we still find it essential to create prepared entrepreneurs. As our universities alter their structure and systems, we can not remain the same entrepreneurship professors that we were last year, nor even yesterday. We must change with the times, and I argue that this change must be centered around the care and growth of the individual, be that student, staff, faculty, etc. If we can engage with the principles of Humane Entrepreneurship, and in so doing, safeguard the value and potential of the human person, we will be able to adapt our methods to fit our environment more easily.

Remembering a conversation last month with Norris Krueger, he introduced the idea of the “Great Re-think,” during which he recommended that we move beyond thinking to entirely reimagining and recreating universities. The global pandemic has allowed academia to change fundamentally, and within that, there is a chance for educators to evolve. Rather than being derived from the changes in academia, the extension of the professor towards Humane Entrepreneurship will ultimately guide us towards creating more accessible and inclusive programs for students. The educator’s intention of HumEnt will lead to creative results, including the bridging of exclusivity gaps among institutions and overcoming unspoken priority so that younger scholars can access innovative and desirable solutions.

Each educator has a higher mandate to educate as many students as possible. The new format of e-learning does not limit this mandate but instead motivates its expansion. If educators can be culture-creating leaders who exemplify the practice of Humane Entrepreneurship, we might bring about a knowledge revolution that works towards equitable and empowering inclusion.

Given the recent transition in leadership at ICSB, we have spent a lot of time thinking about our origins (as back as 1955), during which we have asked the crucial questions: “Does our pedagogy still hold up in our new world,” “Are our systems optimized for the success and growth of our members?”, and “How can ICSB be present to the needs of our members today and tomorrow?” Upon discussing these questions, we have concluded that ICSB is an essential platform (community) for the advancement of entrepreneurship and that our programming holds significant influence over the skillsets of our members. For this reason, and in response to our greater call as educators to provide helpful and creative solutions to the problems before us, ICSB will be opening a new program on Monday (8/3/2020). Named the ICSB Educator 300, this digital database will represent a collection of the world’s most capable high-level educators of the future. Our goal is to limit the number of professors, lecturers, and teachers to 300 to be sure that we can manage the database, connect the database with top universities around the world (to ensure the database’s professors have favorable opportunities), and provide continuing education for these 300 educators as they evolve to the new online, hybrid, and hyflex models of education and teaching.

Please join us as we enter this new world together. Guided by the principles of Humane Entrepreneurship, we are sure to succeed and to bring about real and essential change throughout our global community.

Article by:

Dr. Ayman El Tarabishy
President & CEO, ICSB
Deputy Chair, Department of Management, GW School of Business

 

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