‘Evangelist of Entrepreneurship’ Carl J. Schramm is first guest of 2007-08 University Lectures

‘Evangelist of Entrepreneurship’ Carl J. Schramm is first guest of 2007-08 University LecturesSeptember 17, 2007Kelly Homan Rodoskikahoman@syr.edu

Central New York native Carl J. Schramm, president and chief executive officer of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, will kick off the 2007-08 University Lectures series at Syracuse University on Tuesday, Oct. 2.

Schramm, an economist, lawyer and entrepreneur, will speak on “The Entrepreneurial Imperative” at 7:30 p.m. in Hendricks Chapel. The lecture is free and open to the public; parking is available in the Irving Garage at a reduced rate.

Dubbed as “the evangelist of entrepreneurship” by The Economist, Schramm leads the Kauffman Foundation, America’s largest foundation dedicated to advancing entrepreneurial success. The Kaufmann Foundation awarded SU a five-year $3 million dollar grant in December 2006 that will support the Syracuse Campus-Community Entrepreneurship Initiative. The collaborative partnership will build on the key tenets of Chancellor Nancy Cantor’s Scholarship in Action vision by encouraging faculty and students throughout Central New York to work with communities of experts across disciplines and geographic boundaries to foster entrepreneurial education and innovation through technology, and neighborhood and arts entrepreneurship. SU is one of only nine colleges and universities to receive the grant, part of the Kauffman Campuses Initiative.

Schramm is one of the world’s most foremost thinkers on the role and importance of entrepreneurship to a nation’s economic stability and growth. Educated as an economist and a lawyer, Schramm has been a professor at Johns Hopkins University, an executive in the health care insurance industry and has co-founded of a number of companies in the health care finance and information technology areas.

He is a Batten Fellow at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in 2006. In 2007, Schramm was appointed by U.S. Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez to the Department of Commerce’s Measuring Innovation in the 21st Century Economy Advisory Committee.

Schramm is the author of “The Entrepreneurial Imperative” (HarperCollins, 2006) and “Good Capitalism, Bad Capitalism,” with Robert Litan and William Baumol (Yale University Press, 2007).

About The University Lectures

The University Lectures is a cross-disciplinary lecture series that brings to the University individuals of exceptional accomplishment in the areas of architecture and design; the humanities and the sciences; and public policy, management and communications. The series is supported by the generosity of the University’s trustees, alumni and friends.

Other scheduled speakers in the 2007-08 series are advocates of sustainable food reform Judy Wicks and Alice Waters (Oct. 9); Nuremberg prosecutor Henry T. King, Jr. (Oct. 11); Pulitzer Prize-winning author Tracy Kidder (Nov. 6); Amory Lovins, co-founder of the Rocky Mountain Institute (Nov. 15); Marjorie Hill, CEO of Gay Men’s Health Crisis (Feb. 26, 2008); Robert Satloff, executive director of The Washington Institute for Near East Policy (March 18, 2008); and Eboo Patel, founder and director of the Interfaith Youth Core (March 27, 2008).

The Office of University Lectures welcomes suggestions for future speakers. To recommend a speaker, or for additional information about University Lectures, contact Esther Gray in the Office of Academic Affairs at (315) 443-2941 or eegray@syr.edu, or visit http://lectures.syr.edu.