Abstract
The authors document in detail how the entrepreneurship program was created at Babson College in the 1970s. They recount the early history of Babson’s program because the school was one of the first, if not the first, to make a huge institutional commitment that led to entrepreneurship becoming a core part of its academic programs. At the time, other schools had an entrepreneurship course or two, but Babson’s commitment involved the creation of an undergraduate major, an MBA concentration, an annual research conference, a Distinguished Academy of Entrepreneurs, an Entrepreneurship Chair, and numerous outreach programs. These efforts influenced other universities to increase their entrepreneurship offerings to the extent that a new academic discipline—entrepreneurship studies—was born. A second reason for this article is the belief by those directly involved in the creation of Babson’s program that the complete story has not been told and is in danger of being misunderstood. Like most innovations, the creation of Babson’s entrepreneurship program was not a neat and tidy affair, but one more consistent with the turbulent notions put forth by Joseph Schumpeter and Clayton Christenson. Understanding Babson’s early history with entrepreneurship can help others pursuing or facilitating their own academic innovations.
Babson College was founded in 1919 and in 2019 a commemorative book was published to celebrate the school’s centennial anniversary (Babson College, 2019). Not surprisingly, a good portion of the book was devoted to Babson’s involvement with entrepreneurship, including how a small college with limited resources created a field of study that would eventually catapult it into the upper ranks of pre-eminent institutions of higher education. It is a good story. There is only one problem: it did not include the early story—how the team of original innovators, starting with a “clean sheet of paper,” created Babson’s entrepreneurship program.
So, what did happen? How did entrepreneurship get rolling at Babson? Who got it started? When did the entrepreneurship programs start and what challenges did their creation encounter at start-up?
The start of entrepreneurship at Babson: 1974–1982
It all started with Jack in the early 1970s. That’s John “Jack” Hornaday, whose love and allegiance to Babson was topped only by his declamations (regularly espoused) for his dear alma mater, Duke University. Jack Hornaday was a highly creative individual whose love of family, jovial good nature, great sense of humor and love of puzzles and Coca Cola were all combined into a Falstaffian persona that masked the mind of a deep thinker.
Professor Hornaday would, of course, be the first to admit he was not alone. He was helped by the late Walter Carpenter, who served Babson for decades, and for many of those years as its Academic Vice President. Carpenter supported the idea of ramping up entrepreneurship at Babson. A kind but powerful figure in the institution, his support was indispensable, while his opposition would have been the death knell for entrepreneurship at the school.
Instead, support for entrepreneurship took a giant step forward when Carpenter was joined by Ralph “Bud” Sorenson who served as Babson’s seventh President from 1974 to 1981. On more than one occasion, Sorenson saved the day: he worked tirelessly to grow entrepreneurship at Babson, and at critical moments made decisions that kept it alive and flourishing.
One of Sorenson’s first steps was to appoint Jeffrey Shuman 1 to write the strategic plan that would reposition the school around entrepreneurship, a plan that, in just a few short years, would lead the distinguished entrepreneur Berry Gordy, founder of Motown Records, to say succinctly, “Babson is entrepreneurship.” 2
However, Hornaday, Carpenter, Sorenson and Shuman appreciated that connection well before Gordy arrived on campus. Specifically, they knew that making entrepreneurship a distinctive feature at Babson meant building at least three projects: (1) an innovative way to celebrate entrepreneurs; (2) an innovative research program; and (3) an innovative entrepreneurship curriculum.
The first project, the celebration of entrepreneurs (i.e., the Academy of Distinguished Entrepreneurs) was orchestrated by Jack Hornaday. This celebration, titled Founders Day, was not just a brief induction ceremony but was, as the title implies, an all-day event. Inductees were required to spend the day at Babson, meeting with students and faculty. All proceedings were recorded by Babson and are available through its archives. Its success required significant time throughout the year, selecting the entrepreneurs, who qualified and who did not, preparing the program, and then documenting it.
The second project, the creation of an annual research program, was handled skillfully by Karl Vesper, who joined Babson in 1980 for 1 year as the first Paul T. Babson Chair of Entrepreneurial Studies. Vesper, who even then was a pioneer in the nascent field of entrepreneurial studies, created what today’s innovation theorists would call a “sustaining mechanism” that facilitated the creation of empirical research so badly needed to give entrepreneurial studies a body of knowledge. 3 Here, his work was continued by another pioneer, Albert Shapiro, Babson’s second Visiting Chairholder (1981/82) and by Irene McCarthy, who worked energetically for the next 20 years to make the research conference a resounding success.
The third project, developing a brand-new entrepreneurship curriculum, fell to Robert Ronstadt. Ronstadt joined Babson in 1975 and started working with the team of Hornaday, Carpenter, Sorenson and Shuman in 1977/78, then later with Vesper, Shapiro and McCarthy. By 1978, and still the new kid on the block, Ronstadt got the job no one wanted except him. He developed the initial four courses with help from Jeff Shuman and organized them into an undergraduate major and an MBA concentration: Introduction to Entrepreneurship Creating New Ventures Financing New Ventures Entrepreneurship Practicum
In those days, entrepreneurship was little more than a new ventures class at most universities. Some wanted it to stay that way. Little did the group know that forces were already gathering who opposed making entrepreneurship the distinctive feature of the college. That gets us to the real reasons for recounting this history: to set the record straight and to identify innovation’s missing imperative, a condition of innovation that helps ensure that the innovators are not forgotten, and why it is imperative for academic entrepreneurs.
The Innovator’s Distress
In the late 1990s an eminent Harvard professor, the late Clayton Christensen, argued persuasively in his book The Innovator’s Dilemma that historically good business decisions could become bad decisions, turned sour by disruptive technological change (Christensen, 1997). The same tried and true decisions that caused a company to thrive for decades suddenly became toxic choices, leading to the company’s demise.
Academia has, in the view of the first-named author of this paper (Ronstadt), its own version of the Innovator’s Dilemma. He calls it the “Innovator’s Distress.” However, he notes, “I must confess in more melancholy moments I refer to it as the ‘Innovator’s Heartache’.” Either way, he means the sadness that strikes academic entrepreneurs when they do the right thing as change agents and yet suffer the abuse and retribution of colleagues who see the innovator’s innovations as bad choices—even as distressful ones to them.
Ronstadt has seen the Innovator’s Distress or Innovator’s Heartache play out at several institutions over his career, as have his co-authors. The unfortunate consequence is the emergence of adversarial positions, resulting in the destructive side of “creative destruction,” another concept developed by another Harvard professor. Ronstadt wonders if Joseph Schumpeter is smiling from his grave. Or is he grimacing along with the academic entrepreneurs who must spend time and energy fighting for their innovations, instead of innovating? And that is not the worse part: sometimes the academic entrepreneurs are purged on the altar of tenure, or denied promotion or, still worse, lose the friendship of faculty who are threatened by the destruction of the status quo.
The specifics of these stories are seldom told—because they are hurtful, because they indeed produce heartache. They tend to be most severe whenever a new field or a new discipline is born—especially when, as Ronstadt’s late mentor George Kozmetsky at the University of Texas used to say, the new discipline is a “transdiscipline” that covers many traditional academic fields, sometimes disrupting multiple disciplines at the same time. Then the number of people hurt increases, as does the severity of their wounds.
The resulting pain and heartache are why some feel these stories are best put to rest, along, sadly, with Christensen, Schumpeter and Kozmetsky. But that pathway is the easy road taken, not the way that fosters more innovation—not the way Ronstadt believes our three legendary innovators would have wished. It is a dead-end road that leads to creative stagnation. Why? Because potential academic entrepreneurs, like most human beings, have a limit to the abuse they will endure. When young innovators see an academic landscape littered with distressed pioneers, the likelihood of future innovations diminishes at their institutions.
That stagnation almost happened at Babson College when its entrepreneurship programs were first being envisioned and created. The lines were drawn, and the battles fought. The heartache happened. Why did it happen?
The truth is that a sizable number of Babson faculty and administrators opposed the creation of entrepreneurship as an academic discipline at the time. That may seem silly to some today, with so many entrepreneurship programs dotting the academic landscape, but remember the landscape was nearly bare at the time with little more than a few entrepreneurship electives at a few institutions. However, the programs being designed at Babson were extensive and wide-ranging. Those who opposed them might deny it today, but Ronstadt and Shuman were there, and so were others who can testify that the naysayers feared that popular entrepreneurship courses would siphon off students from their own courses. And so the turf wars began.
Of course, those opposing did not say that student attrition was their reason for objecting to a newborn innovation. They did not need to; the truth is that it’s easy to kill a new idea—far too easy. Instead, they claimed that entrepreneurship could not be taught. They argued that entrepreneurship was not a legitimate academic subject, that it had no real body of literature, that its prescriptions for action were not grounded in empirical data, much less subject to statistical testing. Or, as a last resort, they argued that Babson was too small an organization to assume such a massive challenge that was akin to “betting the ranch.”
Fortunately, the innovators won the day, mainly because the senior members (Sorenson, Carpenter and Hornaday) took a hard stand at faculty and trustee meetings, basically declaring that, like it or not, the college was moving forward with its entrepreneurship program. The outcome: the entrepreneurship programs mentioned in this paper were created and evolved over the years. But a price was paid by the originators. Some were not celebrated; they were simply ignored. One or two were forgotten entirely—written out of history. Even those who received some recognition were undercompensated, given the massive restructuring, repositioning and re-educating that occurred—changes that placed Babson at the pinnacle of a global movement which eventually led academia to recognize entrepreneurship as a worthy academic discipline.
We hope that what we have said thus far and what follows will set the record straight. But just as importantly, we hope to encourage other educational institutions to recognize and celebrate their innovators. Too much is at stake not to do so. The good news is that the “Academic Innovator’s Distress” can be tempered, if not avoided, by caring colleagues who move away from zero sum games and migrate toward win–win solutions for all. We know that migration is easier said than done. Creative destruction is inherently painful, but imaginative minds can ameliorate the pain. Celebrating innovators is part of the “creative” side of creative destruction. Recognizing their accomplishments is the missing imperative, a necessary condition for sustained innovation. After all, once the disruption has settled, won’t new disrupters be needed to replace the old?
A timeline of key events and decisions resulting in the creation of Babson’s entrepreneurship program
Pre-1974
Like a handful of colleges around the world, Babson had a single entrepreneurship course. Envisioned by Jeff Shuman and created by John Hornaday, Head of the Management Department, the course was actually quite novel. Students were formed into teams and had to create a new venture, legally register it with the state, write a plan, develop a product or service prototype, and subsequently even legally discontinue the venture.
1974
Ralph Sorenson becomes Babson’s President and begins a process of strategic planning to determine what Babson should become. For years, students and alumni had lobbied for more courses and events devoted to entrepreneurship. After all, the college’s founder, Roger Babson, was a veritable triple threat when it came to entrepreneurship: as a business entrepreneur, Babson created a successful securities rating company that predicted the Great Depression; as a political entrepreneur, Babson created his own political party which allowed him to run for President; and, most consequentially, as a social entrepreneur, Babson created a unique educational institution in 1919 whose innovative curricula and pragmatic approach to education spawned a high number of entrepreneurs. By the mid- to late 1970s, many Babson alumni had become the cheerleaders for a school built around the notion of entrepreneurship.
1975
Jeff Shuman is named Director of Strategic Planning and drafts Babson’s Strategic Plan which proposes having entrepreneurship as the differentiating feature of Babson College. Both John Hornaday and Walter Carpenter, Academic Vice President, push to make entrepreneurship a major program. A decision is made to test the waters by making entrepreneurship the day-long theme of Founder’s Day.
1977
Robert Ronstadt becomes Director of Strategic Planning and works with Shuman to have entrepreneurship be the distinctive image and competence of the College.
1978
Organized and led by John Hornaday, Founder’s Day is a huge success, structured around Hornaday’s notion of a “hall of fame” for successful entrepreneurs. In April, the Academy of Distinguished Entrepreneurs announces Berry Gordy, Soichiro Honda, Ray Kroc, Royal Little and Ken Olsen as the Academy’s first inductees.
1979–1985
Hornaday divides the College’s entrepreneurial efforts into two theaters of operation, one mainly external and the other internal. In hindsight, Hornaday’s decision to relinquish some control was a testament to his wisdom. Going forward, Hornaday would direct the external programs and Ronstadt would lead the internal efforts. This division of labor was necessary given the size of the undertaking and the limited resources of the College.
For instance, the external entrepreneurship programs brought thousands of people to the Babson campus, many for the first time. They came to celebrate entrepreneurship each year and to witness the induction of world-renowned entrepreneurs into the Academy of Distinguished Entrepreneurs. They came to attend an annual entrepreneurship research conference that drew entrepreneurship scholars to the Babson campus from around the world, and they came with the annual appointments of new Visiting Chairholders. 4
The second theater focused on entrepreneurship programs that were populated by internal constituencies, mainly undergraduate and graduate students’ credit-bearing courses, but also student co-curricular activities and clubs, and faculty development activities. All would constitute the academic foundation for entrepreneurship at Babson. To make this happen, under Hornaday’s mentorship, Ronstadt became a tenured Associate Professor, Chairman of the Management Department and Academic Head of Entrepreneurial Studies at Babson College.
1980–1981
Babson creates its first Chair of Entrepreneurship as a “revolving” or “visiting” chair. Karl Vesper becomes the first Chairholder and is tasked to develop an annual research conference which participants can attend only if they present a research paper based on empirical data. He is succeeded by Albert Shapiro who, like Vesper, is a recognized pioneer in the burgeoning field of entrepreneurship. Shapiro continues Vesper’s work, supporting both research and teaching programs at Babson.
Internally, Ronstadt obtains faculty approval, after a somewhat contentious year-long debate, to create an undergraduate major and a graduate concentration in entrepreneurship. A number of new courses are introduced to form the basis for teaching entrepreneurship at Babson.
1982
Irene M. McCarthy arrives at Babson and helps us realize our goals with both the academic and research programs. Over the years, she was particularly instrumental in making the annual Research Conference a huge success. Once Ronstadt asked Walter Carpenter what made organizations successful. He said, “It’s atmosphere. Creating the right atmosphere is everything.” Irene McCarthy helped create the right atmosphere. Known endearingly by scores of participants as “The Sarge,” the late Irene McCarthy is sorely missed.
1985
Robert Ronstadt receives the 1985 Leavey Award for Excellence in Private Enterprise Education from the Freedoms Foundation for his work at Babson College. The award was given to recognize 5 years of work that resulted in books, articles, technical notes, case studies and films about entrepreneurs that were used to develop Babson’s undergraduate major and MBA concentration in Entrepreneurial Studies—academic programs that were spearheaded by Ronstadt as Babson’s first Academic Head of Entrepreneurial Studies.
In their own words
Recollections from Ralph Sorenson 5
“By the end of the 1974–75 academic year, we had a final draft of the new Master Plan ready to be presented to the trustees for approval. The approval, when it came in the fall, was unanimous.”
“Of all the decisions embodied in the Master Plan, the one that had the greatest positive long-term impact on Babson was that of identifying entrepreneurship as an underserved area of management education.”
“During my early weeks as president […] I began to notice that a large number of graduates had the title of ‘President’ or ‘Founder’ or ‘CEO’ after their names. That’s when the light bulb went off in my head. Why shouldn’t Babson pick as its niche an explicit focus on entrepreneurship education?”
“Several faculty members reinforced this idea in the planning process, and in particular, Professor Jack Hornaday, who was already teaching a course in entrepreneurship and who thought that such a focus made sense for a variety of reasons. First, it built on a historical tradition already in place at Babson. Second, there were no other business schools with such a specialty. Third, such a focus had a good chance of winning the support of most of the management faculty […] The final reason for focusing on entrepreneurship was perhaps the most important one. Namely, as the Master Planning Task Force thought about the future and the needs of the coming decade, we concluded that there would be an expanding need for growing numbers of entrepreneurs capable of creating new enterprises that, in turn, would be the source of jobs, new inventions and innovations, and additional wealth.”
Recollections from Karl Vesper
Bud Sorenson, then President of Babson, invited me to consider the idea of joining Babson as first holder of the newly created Babson Professorship in Entrepreneurship just endowed by relatives of Roger Babson. I had met Bud during my USAF stint at Edwards Air Force Base, where he had been some sort of commander of enlisted men and I had been a flight test engineer, both of us having been in Air Force ROTC during college, he at Amherst and me at Stanford. 6 We met during weekend trips from Edwards to Mammoth Mountain for skiing.
In later conversations with Bud and Jack Hornaday, Babson’s main Professor in Entrepreneurship at the time, the question arose of what I would do at Babson aside from teaching. “Maybe a conference like the one at Baylor?” I replied that maybe Baylor might want to keep that and do a follow-up on it. So, I called Don Sexton at Baylor and asked if they were planning on another entrepreneurship research get-together. Don said no, they weren’t going to pursue that, but instead would do something or other about teaching entrepreneurship (as opposed to research on entrepreneurship).
The next question was whether there would be adequate purpose and interest to power another conference. My recollection is thinking that if we could get 10 scholars to attend with further data-based entrepreneurship research papers, we would do it and then figure what next, if anything, might be a target beyond that. The consistent policy would be that no attendees could come unless they had new data-based papers to present. That worked. There were plenty of new data-based research papers on entrepreneurship and the first Babson Entrepreneurship Research Conference opened into a series that continued successfully for decades to follow.
Not long after that, a new President of Babson, Bill Dill, took over and proposed informally to take a new direction instead of the conference. But luckily, he changed his mind and the conference survived to this day. I remained connected with it on retainer with Babson for a few years.
Recollections from Jeff Shuman
In 1973 Jack Hornaday was teaching a course on entrepreneurship. I had a conversation with him in which I said I had an idea for an experiential project for the class—let the students actually start a business—which we did in the course the following semester. We set up a corporation and sold shares to the students and then they went about starting and building the company that sold a puzzle through retail stores. Jack and I wrote about it and presented it at the 1975 Academy of Management meeting—“Experiential Learning in an Entrepreneurship Course,” Entrepreneurship Interest Group, Academy of Management Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA, August 1975. In addition, we wrote and published two versions of the paper: “Experiential Learning in an Entrepreneurship Course,” with John A. Hornaday. Academy of Management Proceedings 1975; and “Experiential Learning in an Entrepreneurship Course,” with John A. Hornaday. Collegiate News and Views, Fall, 1975, pp. 5–9.
Bob Ronstadt joined Babson in 1975. I think it was around the 1975 timeframe that Ralph Sorenson asked me to be Director of Strategic Planning for the College (Bob took over from me after a couple of years). As the Director, I was involved in the Board of Trustees meetings in which Ralph put forward the idea that Babson should focus on entrepreneurship (clearly a great decision).
Following that decision, Jack, Bob and I put together a proposal to launch the new program on entrepreneurship based on four courses which we developed. I know Karl Vesper was also involved in our discussions. I believe that Jeff Timmons got into the picture a couple of years after I left Babson in 1980, but I know it was after we had put the foundation courses into operation. 7
I also recall that Jack, Bob and I worked on developing what became the Academy of Distinguished Entrepreneurs. I remember that in 1978 the first Academy of Distinguished Entrepreneurs event was held at Babson—I will never forget meeting those five great entrepreneurs.
I left Babson to work full time at my company after the Spring 1980 semester.
Obviously, Jack, Bob and I were not the only ones involved but we were, if you will, the entrepreneurial team that got it started and off the ground. I do recall that at the 1997 Babson Entrepreneurship Research Conference, held at Babson College in April 1997, Jack made a presentation about how the Babson Entrepreneurship Program got started in which he acknowledged the critical role Bob and I played in its founding.
Recollections from Robert Ronstadt
Looking back, I see the seminal event being the first day-long program inducting recipients into the Academy of Distinguished Entrepreneurs. This event lit a fire among those of us who saw the value of entrepreneurship, and it did much to sway others to our cause. Many could now see the valuable role entrepreneurship could play at Babson and how it could take the College to international prominence.
Another important point that has not been stressed yet has to do with elective versus required courses. As Karl reminded me, I recall that the very first entrepreneurship course was actually taught by Terry Allen, a Babson graduate and practicing entrepreneur who taught on a part-time basis. It was an elective course, which also reminded me that all the early entrepreneurship courses were electives, even those constituting the undergraduate major and the MBA concentration. In other words, all undergraduates and MBAs were not required to take at least a single course in entrepreneurship. A few of us felt that was wrong. We had planted a firm stake in the ground with the entrepreneurship banner flying from it. Moreover, the overwhelming number of our students, especially undergraduates, were going to work for smaller enterprises, new start-ups, and/or family businesses—or end up there at some point in their career. Even those working for larger corporations needed, we believed, an entrepreneurial attitude, or at least an “enterprising” one. Consequently, I proposed to the Department of Management faculty in 1984 that we consider making an introductory entrepreneurship course a requirement at the School. I was soundly voted down on that one. I’d lost my cover: Carpenter, Sorenson, Shuman, Vesper and Shapiro had long left the scene.
However, this notion of a required course eventually came to pass. A number of years later, the demand for entrepreneurship could not be quelled and so, as a first step, a college-wide curricular initiative pushed for entrepreneurship to be embedded throughout Babson’s offerings. As recounted on Babson’s current website, that effort has resulted in a required course: Connecting theory with practice, we infuse Entrepreneurial Thought and Action® throughout our curricular and co-curricular offerings. From Foundations of Management and Entrepreneurship, a required course for all first-year undergraduates, to advanced graduate school electives, such as….
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Postscripts: Then and now
Robert Ronstadt
After leaving Babson, Ronstadt worked for 6 years as a CEO in the software business. He then became a full professor at Pepperdine University where he focused on technology commercialization and entrepreneurship. In 1997 he became the J. Marion Professor of Constructive Capitalism at the University of Texas at Austin and its third Director of the IC2 Institute, a renowned “think and do tank” where he oversaw the work of 40 employees and over 200 IC2 Fellows conducting action research on unstructured, cutting-edge problems associated with innovation, creativity, capital formation, venture incubation and technology commercialization.
Ronstadt ended his academic career working closely with the late John Silber at Boston University as Vice President of Technology Commercialization. Since “retiring” in 2006, he has written extensively about the high cost of higher education. He also developed an ongoing program to get high-school seniors through college with little or no debt, with 28 students currently in the pipeline. Over the last decade, he has created and developed a state-wide nonprofit enterprise in New Hampshire called Advantage Kids, which creatively combines tennis and education to change children’s lives both on and off the tennis court. Over a thousand children are impacted by this program each year. In 2018 Ronstadt became certified as tennis teaching professional at the age of 75. 9
Jeff Shuman
Shuman left Babson as a tenured, associate professor in the summer of 1980 (after 8 years) to work full time in a giftware manufacturing and wholesaling company he had started in 1973. He always believed that if you are going to teach entrepreneurship you need actual experience as an entrepreneur. Shuman sold that company in late 1982 and joined the faculty of Bentley University (Bentley College in 1983) teaching strategy. As soon as he joined Bentley, he developed Bentley’s program in entrepreneurship using iterated versions of the four courses that had been started at Babson.
Always an entrepreneur at heart, Shuman was involved in starting (with others) three other companies. The most recent of these, The Rhythm of Business, Inc., was based on his book of the same name published in 1998. The company was started with a partner, Jan Twombly, as a consultancy and advisory firm with core expertise in partnering, strategic alliances and collaboration. Since 1999 Shuman and Twombly have consulted globally (for Fortune 200 companies) and offered education and training to help organizations achieve higher levels of partnering and alliance success. They work with leaders to build and execute a collaborative leadership agenda, break down barriers and drive consistently excellent alliance practice throughout an organization and its partnerships. In addition, they have authored two books on partnering and collaboration and written over 150 articles and white papers.
In 1999, Shuman received the 1999 Leavey Award for Excellence in Private Enterprise Education from the Freedoms Foundation for his work at Babson College and Bentley University, and for his book The Rhythm of Business: The Key to Building and Running Successful Companies. In addition, he was also a recipient of Ernst & Young’s New England Chapter’s Entrepreneur of the Year 1999 award, for his work in helping to develop the discipline and teaching of entrepreneurship. He retired from Bentley as a tenured full professor in June 2020 (after 37 years) and was awarded Professor Emeritus status. He is now working full-time at his company, The Rhythm of Business.
Karl Vesper
After leaving Babson, Karl Vesper continued working on the Babson Research Conference, designing the Proceedings into a book format, with its green cover and logo that have been maintained over the years. However, he remains disappointed that the Research Conference and its Proceedings have “somehow always remained so academic that it never became a useful source for teaching materials, as best I could tell.”
Mel Copen (Babson’s Academic Vice President during early 1980s) engaged Karl Vesper on a retainer for several years to help with the Conference while Vesper continued to be based in Seattle at the University of Washington, where he started the Entrepreneurship Interest Group in the Academy of Management (which eventually became its largest division). Regrettably, Vesper feels that that initiative also did not yield papers that he and other colleagues found very useful for their entrepreneurship classes.
When William Dill, having retired from IBM, went to Babson (President from 1981 to 1989) he decided that the Babson Entrepreneurship Research Conference should shift from entrepreneurship to some other topic or perhaps should be discontinued entirely. Vesper, along with others, helped to change Dill’s mind. However, Vesper does not remember who else, if anybody, was involved.
Ralph Sorenson
After 7 years, Sorenson left Babson in June 1981 to become President of the Barry Wright Corporation. He remained at Barry Wright until it was sold in 1989. Thereafter he returned to teaching at the Harvard Business School for a couple of years as Adjunct Professor until accepting the job of Dean of the Business School at the University of Colorado for the academic year 1991–92. Although he decided to leave that position in 1993, he and his wife fell in love with the Boulder area and they have lived there ever since.
Over the years, Sorenson became involved with “angel investing” through a company he founded. He has also been an active member of many corporate and nonprofit boards, including the Boston Museum of Science, Houghton-Mifflin, the Boston Globe and Whole Foods.
Footnotes
Authors’ note
This paper is dedicated “In Honorarium” to Dr Jack Hornaday, Dr Walter Carpenter, Dr Al Shapiro, and Ms Irene McCarthy.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
