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 [email protected].

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 2026 to June 2027
Fellows will gain exclusive access to the Fellows Initiative Fund

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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