When Melissa Graebner arrived at Illinois’ Gies College of Business in 2019, she brought with her more than a decade and a half of teaching and research experience at UT Austin — and time spent in Silicon Valley’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. This year, she stepped into a newly created role as the first associate dean of entrepreneurship at Gies, charged with unifying the college’s many entrepreneurial initiatives and building new opportunities.
Her first major move: spearheading the launch of a university-wide entrepreneurship minor designed to reach students far beyond the walls of Gies.
A LONG-AWAITED BREAKTHROUGH
For decades, efforts to create a campus-wide entrepreneurship minor at Illinois stalled. “Every time it has gotten shot down or stuck in some way because we just couldn’t work well together in the entrepreneurship space,” Dean Brooke Elliott says. “But we really are now.”
That breakthrough came through a partnership between Gies and the Grainger College of Engineering, with nearly 30 departments across campus contributing courses and signing on in support. The new minor will be run out of Gies under the Origin Ventures Office of Entrepreneurship, with Melissa Graebner spearheading the initiative.
Elliott, speaking to Poets&Quants during the school’s Founders Week, stresses that the minor is not just for aspiring startup founders. “Entrepreneurship should be accessible. It should be available to anyone,” she says. “It really is about building an entrepreneurial mindset. You can be a founder, but very few students are going to end up being founders. You might be a founder as an undergrad, you could be a founder five to 10 years later, or you could be an entrepreneur within your organization.
“It’s about cultivating this innovation mindset.”
EXPANDING ACCESS BEYOND BUSINESS STUDENTS
Illinois Gies’ Melissa Graebner: “The research shows personality explains maybe 10% of entrepreneurial success. The rest comes from skills and experiences that can be learned”
The new minor, expected to launch in Fall 2026 pending final approvals, will be open to any undergraduate at the University of Illinois, regardless of major. It is being developed in partnership with the Grainger College of Engineering and will draw on electives from 23 different departments across campus.
Graebner tells P&Q that the goal is to make entrepreneurship education available to students who previously had no transcriptable option.
“There was a real gap,” she says. “Gies already had a Strategy, Innovation and Entrepreneurship major. Grainger had the Technology Entrepreneur Center and an engineering-only double major. But students outside of business and engineering — who might be in media, ACES, or LAS — had almost no pathway. The minor is meant to serve them, while also providing an option for students who can’t fit a full double major into their schedules.”
A CURRICULUM BUILT FOR FLEXIBILITY & RELEVANCE
The structure of the minor blends a shared foundation with tailored electives. All students will take Introduction to Entrepreneurship (taught by Gies faculty) and Idea to Enterprise (taught by Grainger’s Technology Entrepreneur Center). From there, they’ll branch into courses that align with their academic interests.
Options include classes in anthropology, economics, history, and global studies that examine entrepreneurship in its societal and economic contexts. Students can also choose from application-focused electives such as entrepreneurship in food systems, information sciences, or media.
By design, many courses will double as general education requirements, making the program easier to complete and more relevant to students’ career goals.
“Our intent was to create the most accessible entrepreneurial ecosystem in the country,” Graebner says. “We want students to see themselves as potential entrepreneurs — whether they grew up around business conversations or are first-generation college students from rural communities.”
COMBINING PRACTICE WITH RESEARCH
Graebner emphasizes that the minor is not only about giving students a chance to start companies; it’s also about shaping how they think.
“To offer world-class entrepreneurship education, you have to combine experiential activities with evidence-based research,” she says. “We know from decades of studies how entrepreneurs develop business models, pitch to investors, and make decisions. Our teaching should be grounded in that scholarship — not just anecdotes.”
She also aims to dispel persistent myths, like the idea that entrepreneurs are “born” with a gift. “The research shows personality explains maybe 10% of entrepreneurial success. The rest comes from skills and experiences that can be learned.”
That philosophy shapes programs like EntreCorps, a student-run, faculty-supervised pro bono consulting group where students work with founders, even if they don’t plan to start a venture themselves. It also underpins the long-running iVenture Accelerator, which supports student founders with stipends, capacity funding, and mentorship — including a summer residency in Chicago to connect with alumni and investors.
A LONG-TERM VIEW OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP
For Graebner, the real measure of the minor’s success won’t be how many students raise venture capital right after graduation. Instead, she wants to instill an entrepreneurial mindset that students can carry throughout their careers.
“Some of our alumni, like Ryan Coon and Larry Gies, didn’t start companies until years after graduation,” she says. “We want students to leave here with the confidence to pursue entrepreneurship when the time is right for them — whether that’s immediately, or after working in consulting, banking, or another field.”
Enrollment projections for the minor start modestly: 50 students in the first year, growing to around 130 within five years. But Graebner believes the impact will be broad, touching not just would-be founders but also future professionals across industries.
“A life is a long time,” she says. “Our goal is to lay a foundation — so that whenever our students decide to take the leap, they’ll be ready.”
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