Entrepreneurship Degree Planned at New College Institute

In the state of Virginia, Martinsville's infrastructure is in trouble. Due to the loss of many manufacturing jobs in the area, the city contains the highest unemployment percentage in the state. City officials realize that, as factory jobs are increasingly taken over by foreign or robotic hands, many of those jobs will not be recovered even when the economy bounces back into full swing. The city's local college, however, has a plan to help its city's denizens stake a new claim at a career.

That plan in question? Entrepreneurship degrees.

Henry County's New College Institute (NCI) is planning to launch a bachelor degree in entrepreneurship within the next couple years. It would be the first college degree of its kind offered in the state, a bold move on the college's part. That said, the economic climate in the county necessitates the emergence of just such a degree.

NCI executive director Barry Dorsey spoke to the Martinsville Bulletin about the plan, citing how the loss of factories and the uprise of modern technology has made a thus-far irreparable gap in the city's employment. He "mentioned RTI International Metals, which is establishing a plant in the county's Patriot Centre at Beaver Creek industrial park, as an example. The firm plans to invest $100 million in the facility and hire 150 people," whereas when DuPont's factory left town it took thousands of jobs along with it. It's a situation that seems bleak, but Dorsey sees hope in the hands of Martinsville's own citizens. "People in this area have a lot of great ideas," Dorsey told the news team, "but they need help in translating those ideas into viable" businesses. That is where an entrepreneurship degree comes into play.

The only roadblock to the degree program's success, at this point, is that as it currently stands, NCI cannot offer the program on its own. NCI currently offers Henry County students access to higher-level courses developed at other institutes, and then only once associate degree requirements have been fulfilled at a community college. NCI must decide whether to develop the program with a "consortium of institutions," or evolve as a college to become a free-standing institution with its own four-year degrees. Despite the decisions still to be made, however, Dorsey is optimistic that the school's proposal will succeed and the program will come to fruition. "Everyone I've talked to at the state thinks it's a great idea," he says, and in this economic state, it couldn't come at a better time.