Since 1992, the Farmer School of Business Entrepreneurship program and the John W. Altman Institute for Entrepreneurship have emphasized strong academic research and immersive, real-world learning opportunities in the areas of startup and venture capital, social entrepreneurship, corporate venturing, technology commercialization, and creativity and innovation.

Offering a co-major and a minor, the entrepreneurship program engages more than 3,200 students annually from more than 110 different majors from across Miami University’s campus.

The vast majority of students who take Entrepreneurship classes never actually start their own business, choosing to use the knowledge and experience gained to help their careers in other ways.

But more than 40 businesses have been started by Miami students while still in college, including Oliver Zak and Selom Agbitor’s Mad Rabbit Tattoo, an aftercare company founded in 2019 that ranked No. 4 on the inaugural RedHawk50, the 50 fastest-growing Miami RedHawk-owned or Miami RedHawk-led private businesses in the world. They created Mad Rabbit’s first balm in a crockpot in their High Street apartment.

“(Miami) was a really good resource for me to spend time with like-minded people who cared about school, who cared about business — some with corporate, some with entrepreneurial aspirations," Zak said. "Just being able to find that community, which I think that's something Farmer (School of Business) did a very good job of pushing.”

The Entrepreneurship program won the 2024 Model Entrepreneurship Program Award from the U.S. Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship and the NASDAQ Center of Entrepreneurial Excellence Award in 2020. The Princeton Review has ranked it among the top 10 public universities for entrepreneurship for 16 consecutive years.

The department involves students in several extracurricular activities each year, ranging from Social Innovation Weekend and Entrepreneurial Consulting to the Venture Capital Investment Competition and Startup Weekend.

“I met my partner through Startup Weekend at Miami, and we decided we liked how each other clicked and what we wanted out of life. And we went on and were able to develop a concept that works here in Oxford,” OxVegas Chicken co-founder and Miami alum Tyler Storer said. “Entrepreneurship, especially the way it's taught at Miami, really facilitates creativity.”

The program’s reach has grown as the Lee and Rosemary Fisher Innovation College@Elm building opened in 2023, a unique public-private investment focused on developing the talent and entrepreneurs necessary to advance Oxford, Butler County, and the region’s workforce.

RedHawk Ventures, a student-led seed stage venture capital investment organization, and 1809 Capital, an alumni-led growth-stage venture fund established to benefit Miami University alumni, both operate out of the space.

Miami University President Gregory Crawford called College@Elm “a place of discovery, imagination, and creativity — an inspiring hub for entrepreneurs who want to make the world better. I am in awe of our entrepreneurs and the energy and value they bring each day to our campus and to College@Elm.”

The first startup at College@Elm was Coarse Culture, a thriving shea butter business founded by Miami alumna VaLanDria Smith-Lash ’23, who was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list and awarded Entrepreneur of the Year.

“We are thrilled to see entrepreneurs bring their visions to life at Lee and Rosemary Fisher Innovation College@Elm,” said Randi Thomas, vice president for ASPIRE. “There’s nothing like seeing an idea go to market and make a meaningful impact.”

The Entrepreneurship program has also branched out into new areas of research and innovation. The Center for Leading the Integration of Faith & Entrepreneurship at the Farmer School began as a research lab in 2018 but was established as a center after a $3 million gift in 2022.

Through its various programs, competitions, clubs, and centers, the John W. Institute for Entrepreneurship strives to help students become beyond ready for whatever path their future holds.

“All of my earlier classes were giving me the skills, and then I'm in the real world, I'm consulting for companies, I'm traveling, competing against colleges, creating valuations and doing due diligence to figure out which company is the best,” Abigail Van Drunen ’24 said. “I think the entrepreneurship program created real-world events that better prepared me for the working world after it.”