Extract

Samuel M. Hines, Jr A liberal arts education might be viewed as a metaphor for entrepreneurship. The humanities suggest that the entrepreneur is an artist. History might see entrepreneurs as the true revolutionaries of technological, economic, and social change. A liberal arts education is rich in metaphors that are capable of capturing the multifaceted life of an entrepreneur. A course in film or the theatre might suggest that the entrepreneur is a stage or film director, while a course in physical education might reveal the entrepreneur as a coach. . . . Undergraduate entrepreneurship education should not be viewed as a narrow careerist pursuit, but as giving new life to the traditions of a liberal arts education. (Ray, 1990: 80) Introduction The topics identified in the title of this chapter are not typically linked together in the academy. Liberal education and service learning may seem to go naturally together, but leadership and entrepreneurship are less obviously linked to the first two topics. This chapter shows how several prominent lines of scholarly inquiry into leadership and entrepreneurship, currently popular academic and student affairs programming in civic engagement, and the venerable goal of liberal education relate to one another in a number of ways. Moreover, we shall argue that they offer real potential for synergies that can contribute to the creation of innovative colleges, cultures, and curricula. Furthermore, leadership studies, student-oriented programs for responsible civic engagement and service learning, and research on and programs in entrepreneurship actually can provide a nexus for new initiatives that...