MANAGING PRACTITIONERS IN THE ENTREPRENEURSHIP CLASS

One of the strengths of the traditional entrepreneurship class that ca n benefit teachers in other disciplines is the widespread and highly i ntegrated use of practitioners (e.g., entrepreneurs, business experts) to complement academic instruction. The author draws on published rep orts codifying an extensive oral history of how practitioners can be b est used in the class. Four important aspects of practitioner manageme nt in the entrepreneurship class are discussed: (a) identifying the ro les that practitioners can serve in a class, (b) enhancing and expandi ng the search process to find the right practitioner, (c) preparing th e practitioner's classroom experience to make it optimally rewarding f or the presenter, and (d) managing the actual process of the practitio ner's presentation to make it as mishap free and as substantively inte grated as is possible.