Anderson Center
Programs & Research
At the Anderson Center, entrepreneurship is both a field of study and a force for impact. Our programs give students the knowledge and experience to launch ventures, lead innovation, and tackle real-world challenges. Faculty across disciplines conduct research that explores how entrepreneurship shapes industries and communities. Through hands-on courses, collaborative projects, and meaningful inquiry, we create opportunities for students and scholars to turn big ideas into practical solutions and prepare for a future built on creativity, leadership, and action.
Anderson Center
Entrepreneurship
Education
The Haslam College of Business offers specializations in entrepreneurship at the graduate and undergraduate level as well as a certification course for social cause professionals. The coursework in each equips our students with skills to identify and validate business opportunities, foster creativity and solve complex problems. These skills are not only necessary for launching new businesses but also can be utilized for business consulting, nonprofit organizations or corporations that promote an entrepreneurial approach to management.
Start a Business
Starting a business is tough. Building the business is even tougher. Entrepreneurship courses teach you how to identify and assess an opportunity, build and execute a business plan, and prepare for growth.
Work With an Early-Stage Venture
You don’t have to start your own business to employ entrepreneurial skills. A background in entrepreneurship will prepare you to join a startup or early- stage company and play a vital role in its development and expansion.
Be an Innovator
An innovator thinks like an entrepreneur but acts within an existing company or organization. A background in entrepreneurship will teach you to see things others miss and provide you with the critical thinking skills to innovate from within, a trait valued by employers.
Haslam College of Business
Undergraduate Programs
The Anderson Center helps facilitate an undergraduate interdisciplinary entrepreneurship minor, an undergraduate interdisciplinary social entrepreneurship minor and an entrepreneurship learning community housed within the Haslam College of Business but open to students from across the University of Tennessee. Haslam also offers a three-course, collateral in entrepreneurship for students majoring in finance, human resource management, management, marketing and supply chain management.
Haslam College of Business
Graduate Programs
Haslam’s Full-Time MBA offers a concentration in entrepreneurship and innovation as well as an Entrepreneurship Graduate Fellows program providing a $10,000 scholarship per semester and dedicated guidance to students starting their own business.
Beginning in 2024, we will offer a technology commercialization concentration, available to students in any UT master’s degree program. The concentration will consist of a two-course sequence aimed at assisting students in launching a technology-based business. MBA students who are interested in partnering with technology developers will work in teams to develop business models and funding plans.
Anderson Center
Certificate Programs
The Anderson Center helps facilitate a new Franchise Certificate Program that provides students with a firm foundational knowledge of franchising as an entrepreneurial option. Entrepreneurs who want to balance the freedom of working for themselves with the support, training, and name recognition of an existing brand will learn many facets of franchising. Those considering a career with a franchisor or desiring to enhance their franchise knowledge will also benefit from this comprehensive curriculum.
Anderson Center
Social Cause
The Consortium for Social Enterprise Effectiveness is a yearlong certificate program designed for executive directors and other senior leaders in organizations focused on social missions. This includes nonprofit services, non-government organizations and foundations.
