The Bloch School has a unique campus-wide mission: spread an entrepreneurial mind-set and business thinking across UMKC’s campus and into the broader community.
Bloch academic partnerships range from specific examples, such as the Graduate Certificate in Performing Arts Management, a joint program with the Conservatory; to more general, such as the Entrepreneurship Innovation Grant program, which supports student, faculty or staff initiatives in entrepreneurship across all academic units. These initiatives can include curriculum development, technology commercialization, school and department innovation, community engagement and ecosystem building.
The Entrepreneurship Minor, which is open to all UMKC students, brings an entrepreneurial perspective to a student’s major field of study. Students from outside the Bloch School have the option of replacing up to two electives with discipline-related entrepreneurship electives.
In addition to course work, Enactus, a student club focused on entrepreneurial public-service projects, is run from Bloch but open to students in any major.
“Only about half the students in Enactus are business majors, and the Entrepreneurship minor is the most diverse program in the Bloch school,” said Jeff Hornsby, Curators’ Distinguished Professor, Henry W. Bloch/Missouri Endowed Chair of Entrepreneurship and Director, Regnier Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. “I really feel that the effort to spread entrepreneurial thinking to all corners of UMKC has been greatly reinforced by all of the cooperation we’ve received from the schools across campus.”
The Cross Campus Advisory Board works to promote a culture of entrepreneurship throughout UMKC. The group includes faculty from seven different academic units outside Bloch, plus staff from the UMKC Innovation Center.
The School of Law maintains longstanding partnerships with Bloch through the Business and Entrepreneurial Law emphasis area, including the Law, Technology and Public Policy course at the law school and the Entrepreneurial Legal Services Clinic. During the clinics, law students, who are overseen by faculty, provide legal support for startup efforts.
Students completing a B.A. degree in Urban Studies may pursue early admission to the Bloch Master of Public Administration (MPA) program while simultaneously reducing the total number of hours required to complete the MPA. Similarly, students enrolled in an undergraduate program at the School of Science and Engineering may apply for entrance to the Professional Master of Business Administration (PMBA) program at the beginning of the final year of their undergraduate program.
Students in the B.A./M.D. program at the School of Medicine can pursue the PMBA during a leave of absence after the completion of year four. Students in the School of Dentistry DDS program or the School of Pharmacy’s Pharm.D. program can pursue the PMBA simultaneously. Because the UMKC PMBA can be completed online, Pharm.D. students at any one of the three campus locations (Kansas City, Columbia, Springfield) may apply to the this program.