New Business Center to Put the Liberal Arts to Work
Professor David Newton is preparing to transform Westmont’s economics and business department into a leader of entrepreneurial research. He plans to launch a Center for Entrepreneurship, Ethics and Enterprise (E3) with the slogan, “The liberal arts at work.”
Newton intends to locate the center in downtown Santa Barbara, where it would host ongoing college initiatives such as the business plan competitions and the SEED venture capital forum. “Holding these events in Santa Barbara would create a more interactive relationship with the business community,” he says. “It’s a way the liberal arts could mesh perfectly with applied faculty-student research to benefit the economy.”
Economics and business juniors would apply to spend a semester of their senior year at E3 taking 13 units and doing a practicum and applied research. The first initiative would be the Westmont Small Business Barometer, a monthly index of business and investment activity from more than 1,000 entrepreneurs nationwide in 20 industries.
“We would be the pulse of national entrepreneurial activity in hiring, buying new equipment, expanding facilities and spending on research and development,” says Newton, a frequent guest on CNN and contributor to Entrepreneur magazine, Miami Herald, Los Angeles Times and San Francisco Chronicle. “We could have a great interdisciplinary approach to education, true to our liberal arts mission, while integrating and synthesizing high-level, applied research to answer questions and provide support for private-sector markets.”
E3 would produce the first nationwide venture forum index to measure about 150 forums that feature entrepreneurs presenting business plans to potential funders. “We would survey these forums, talk to venture capital firms and monitor and analyze what kinds of start-ups are getting funded, how much capital is being raised and how investment deals are structured,” he says.
About 80 colleges and universities also host similar venture forums and business plan competitions. Over time, Newton plans to collect data from more than a hundred such forums. “We would learn what industries are being addressed in business plans, how much money is being requested and how many are getting funded,” he says. “This could revolutionize how people think about a liberal arts college. We’re not a business school. We don’t have an MBA program. But we would synthesize applied research with an interdisciplinary perspective and broadcast it worldwide.”
Newton envisions E3 as a publishing house for business faculty at Westmont and other schools. “We could fast-track great manuscripts and get them into the hands of a large national audience faster than traditional publishers,” he says. “We could have timely topics selling at Amazon within 30 days of a manuscript’s completion.”
Newton, in his 22nd year at Westmont, recently published, “Job Creation: How It Really Works and Why Government Doesn’t Understand It.” He and co-author Andrew Puzder, chief executive officer of CKE Inc., have spoken on CNN, Fox News and talk radio and at Young America’s Foundation, the Reagan Ranch Center, King’s College in New York City, chambers of commerce and venture forums.