Nellie Cronin, a junior majoring in public relations,
strategic communication, and health & risk communication, competed on a team
of five Ashland University undergraduate students at the 2013 Business Concept
Competition held as part of the seventh annual Entrepreneurship Education
Consortium’s (EEC) Entrepreneurship Immersion Week (EIW) competition at Hiram College on
Aug. 4-9. The AU team claimed first prize for its improved public and commercial
restroom product.
EIW is an intensive one-week, academic immersion
experience for undergraduates from all disciplines to immerse themselves in the
skills needed to help them develop new business concepts and apply these skills
in a team-based business concept competition. There were nine participating
collegiate teams. The teams conceived and developed a business concept that was presented to a
panel of judges from the Northeast Ohio entrepreneurial ecosystem. (http://immersionweek.org/)
Due the competitive nature of the concepts presented, the judges took more
than an hour and a half to select the winners before naming the Ashland
University team as first place and awarding them with the $2,500 prize.
When asked about her experience, Cronin said, “The
Department of Communication Studies really deserves this one! The professors
and the department itself has given me so many opportunities such as being an
intern for the Rural Emergency Trauma Institute (RETI), being a co-author on a
chapter of a book that was published, and so much more. These opportunities
have been beneficial in so many ways and taught me so many new things. This led
me to be able to do all the work I was able to do during the Entrepreneurship
Immerse Week and landing first place! I am so thankful for the department; they
have helped me so much and will continue to watch me grow.”
"While I am not shocked, I am very proud of Nellie
as she has developed into a quite an innovative and well-spoken student. She
has brought great pride to the Department of Communication Studies," says
Dr. Theodore Avtgis, professor and department Chair.
The Ashland
team was coached by Read F. Wakefield, director of the Burton D. Morgan Center
for Entrepreneurial Studies, at Ashland University and treasurer and
past-president of the EEC. Dr. Dan Fox, associate professor and chair of the
department of Marketing, Hospitality Management and Fashion Merchandising, and
past-director of the EEC, assisted the Ashland team on Thursday afternoon and
evening.
The Entrepreneurship
Educational Consortium Inc. (EEC) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation and a
unique collaboration of 11 Northeast Ohio colleges and universities whose
purpose is to provide practical "experiential" and theoretical
education to students in Northeast Ohio to prepare them to become entrepreneurs
or intrapreneurs, create new ventures and jobs and build wealth for the region.
The EEC was founded to promote both the concept and the reality of
Entrepreneurship among college students of all disciplines. Beyond imparting
the necessary classroom fundamentals, it encourages student exploration of new
business concepts.
Ashland
University is one of the seven founding members of the EEC. The EEC won
national recognition when it received the 2010 Innovative Pedagogy for
Entrepreneurship Education from the United States Association for Small
Business and Entrepreneurship.
