ACEI Research and Teaching Fellows - Haslam College of Business

Anderson Center

ACEI Fellows Program

The Anderson Center Fellows Program seeks to create a unified community of faculty members across the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, who share expertise in entrepreneurship and innovation to advance the center’s mission. Fellows contribute through their individual strengths — whether research, teaching, industry connections or mentorship — while working collectively toward common goals.

For more information, please contact bbergma1@utk.edu.

Anderson Center Fellows

Program Objectives

Student Empowerment – Equip students with entrepreneurial mindset and problem-solving capabilities
Problem-Focused Learning – Connect students with real-world challenges requiring innovative solutions
Bold Action Culture – Create campus environment that celebrates calculated risk-taking and experimentation
Cross-Disciplinary Innovation – Foster entrepreneurial thinking beyond business into all academic areas
Industry-Academic Bridge – Ensure university entrepreneurship research and education meets real-world needs

Fellows’ Commitment

Cohort Meetings – Twice per semester, collaborative planning and updates, resource sharing and strategic alignment
Committee Meetings – Twice per semester, goal setting, planning and execution
Anderson Center Integration – Host Anderson Center staff/ambassadors in at least one class session per semester
Anderson Center Programs/Events Sharing – Post Anderson Center events in Canvas and share with relevant connections
Annual Showcase – Present outcomes and innovations at year-end celebration

Support for Fellows

Fellows will carry the “Anderson Center Fellow” title from July 2025 to June 2026
Fellows will receive a stipend of $1,000 per semester of appointment

Four Unique Tracks

Track A: Innovation in Education – Integrate entrepreneurial and problem-solving skills and ed-tech into courses, develop new modules linking disciplines to real-world challenges, create assessment tools for entrepreneurial mindset development and contribute resources to Tennessee K-12 curriculum development
Track B: Research and Insight Generation – Conduct studies addressing industry challenges, mentor Ph.D. students on entrepreneurship dissertations, create brief videos translating expertise for practitioners and present findings at academic conferences.
Track C: Professional Training Design – Develop certification programs and micro-credentials in entrepreneurial leadership, create executive education workshops for specific industries and leadership levels and design train-the-trainer programs for K-12 educators implementing entrepreneurship curriculum.
Track D: External Partnership Development – Secure new corporate partnerships with collaboration agreements, generate measurable student opportunities, maintain a documented partnership pipeline, facilitate faculty-practitioner collaborations and manage a “Problem Bank” of real-world challenges for student projects.

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