Many students enter the University of South Carolina with entrepreneurial dreams. But the entrepreneurial mindset is as much about how you think about solving problems as it is about launching a new business or bringing an invention to market — and acquiring that mindset requires a very particular kind of educational environment.
Since 2017, USC’s McNair Institute for Entrepreneurism and Free Enterprise has provided exactly that, combining innovative instruction, experiential learning, mentorship, advising and beyond-the-classroom opportunities for more than 5,000 students to date. In addition to collaborating with and supporting organizations inside and outside the university, the institute connects students and entrepreneurs to other entrepreneurs and leaders, fostering economic growth locally and statewide.
The institute was created by 1958 alumnus Robert McNair, founder and CEO of the NFL’s Houston Texans and founder of Cogen Technologies. McNair died in 2018, but the institute’s work continues thanks to an $8 million gift from the Robert and Janice McNair Foundation.
“I believe that many students at South Carolina probably can enjoy greater economic opportunity and financial success by being entrepreneurs rather than working for giant corporations."
Led by Dirk Brown, a faculty member in the Darla Moore School of Business, the McNair Institute is one of just five centers established by the foundation at colleges and universities around the country. The McNairs have also funded numerous scholarship opportunities, including USC’s prestigious McNair Scholars program for the top 20 out-of-state students entering the Honors College each year.
“Entrepreneurship is the lifeblood of any healthy business ecosystem, but it’s notoriously difficult to teach,” says institute board member Lanford Holloway, a 2013 International MBA graduate and founder of software company TerraStride. “Aside from learning basic concepts and tools, it really must be lived and experienced to be understood.”
Sydney Brookshire can attest. Brookshire graduated with finance and marketing degrees in spring 2021 and completed her IMBA the same year. She hasn’t launched her own company — she is currently a pricing manager at Eastman Chemical in Johnson City, Tennessee — but she now thinks about business differently thanks to the institute, which she discovered through USC’s Entrepreneurship Club.
“Many people think that entrepreneurship has to be starting your own business," says Brookshire. "I think that entrepreneurship, in many ways, is a mindset, and we can all take on that mindset in our daily lives.”
And that mindset pays off not only in the business ecosystem but in other sectors, like research and education. Janay Vacharasin graduated with a degree in biology from the South Carolina Honors College and is now an assistant professor at Francis Marion University.
“It was so much more than learning in a classroom about free enterprise, designing a business model canvas, NDAs, creation of science and tech, consumer connections, etc.,” she explains. “My biggest takeaway is that the experiential learning opportunities were precious, extremely valuable and helped to guide the decisions I make to this day.”