A friend recently asked if I write the entries on Don’s Desk by myself. I thought the quality of writing itself would attest to the lack of any editorial guidance. To remove any doubt, I write these entries by myself. In retrospect, many of the posts would benefit from a strong editorial hand.
This week, I made the jump to the big time, following the Chancellor and a few other CCC Presidents (health and TDL) in an ongoing discussion about College to Careers at CCC on the Huffington Post website. In my post, I talked about the role of CCC in helping entrepreneurs through the 10,000 Small Businesses program we host at HWC.
I say ‘big time’ because while I have blogged for 18 months now, the first time my Mother commented on a post was when it appeared on the Huffington Post. Don’s Desk just does not have the same cachet as Arianna Huffington’s media empire.
How fortunate, then, that my Huffington post entry was ably assisted by Nikole Muzzy, our marketing/PR lead at the College. As Nikole and I have worked together, she has learned ‘my voice’ and has played a valuable behind-the-scenes role in helping through a number of public appearances, both virtual and physical. I am grateful for her guidance and strong editorial hand. The HuffPost piece is evidence of her talent.
Don’s Desk, however, remains hands-off to anyone but me. For better and worse.
Don's Desk 
Don, I have read the post on the HF regarding the 10,000 Small Businesses project at HWC and I think it’s an absolutely fantastic opportunity to not only support the small business owners through this educational initiative and achieve the mission of the grant – it’s a great opportunity to build a connection between the college and those business owners to enrich current students’ perspective on entrepreneurship and encourage them to think about entrepreneurship as a career option in the future.Through this initiative bridges can be built towards future employment of HWC students by the 10,000 Small Businesses alumni, of course, but overall, numerous entrepreneurship education studies prove that students who have exposure to entrepreneurial experiences (at home, through friends, or other role models) are more likely to consider starting entrepreneurial careers in the future. If those students also have mentors who are entrepreneurs, they are even more likely to consider starting a business. If they get an chance to apprentice for businesses run by their mentors, it becomes even more likely that at some point in their lives they will consider starting a business. Many higher education institutions are struggling introducing entrepreneurship courses into their curricula because of the lack of connection to real businesses and those options (experiential learning, successful intelligence experience with mentors etc.) This grant in the context of Reinvention project at CCC can really become a model of well-rounded learning in a discipline that is incredibly challenging to teach theoretically. I am a young researcher interested in entrepreneurship education and I am very excited that CCC has gotten a chance to implement such an interesting initiative in Chicago!