For years Elspeth Stanzil looked for a way to combine her passion for working with children and horses with a lucrative business.

A graduate student in DePaul University’s School for New Learning (SNL) who is studying environmental education, Stanzil co-founded Sunrise Center North, a non-profit organization in Coal City, Ill., in 2006 with a friend, Kris Montrella, who had run a similar organization in St. Anne, Ill. The business provides therapeutic horseback riding lessons and equine-assisted activities for people with special needs, such as cerebral palsy, autism and developmental and social delays. “I’ve always loved horses and I love to be around children,” said Stanzil, of Romeoville, who has volunteered at therapeutic horseback riding programs since 2005.

Stanzil and Montrell recently won in the non-profit/social entrepreneurship category of Launch DePaul, an annual new venture competition sponsored by DePaul’s Coleman Entrepreneurship Center. The judges awarded the center $2,500 in cash and $500 in legal fees to further the venture.

Stanzil said her organization would like to use the services of the Coleman Entrepreneurship Center to increase visibility and improve fundraising efforts so it can expand to serve senior citizens and military veterans.  

Stanzil is not alone in her quest to find new outlets for her creative ideas in an effort to be her own boss and have her own business. Rather than retool for the corporate world, more and more people are going back to school to carve out plans for their own businesses.

DePaul students interested in starting their own ventures are showing up in increasing numbers in SNL and the Coleman Entrepreneurship Center, where the number of students served has gone from 18 in 2007 to 150 in 2010, according to Raman Chadha, executive director of the center.
Meanwhile, enrollment in SNL’s MAAPS (master of arts in applied professional studies) program, which is especially well-suited for entrepreneurs, has nearly doubled in the last 2 ½ years.

“The entrepreneurial spirit is always alive and well in this country,” said Patrick J. Murphy, assistant professor of management in DePaul’s Kellstadt Graduate School of Business. “When the overall economy is depressed, the entrepreneurial spirit is easier to see because many Americans are more inclined to act on it. Historically, recessions are periods in which more firms are founded and even more millionaires are made.”

Women are especially drawn to entrepreneurship because its flexibility and independence provide a better work-life balance for them.

“During the past two decades, women have entered entrepreneurship in dramatically increasing numbers and at a faster rate than their male counterparts,” said SNL Associate Professor Miriam Ben-Yoseph. Ben-Yoseph has co-authored a number of articles on the subject with Lisa Gundry, professor of management in DePaul’s College of Commerce, and Margaret Posig, associate professor of management in the College of Commerce. “Research has shown that women and men become entrepreneurs for similar reasons, such as wanting to be their own boss, having greater independence and controlling their own destiny.

“There are, however, other reasons unique to women that play a major role in their decisions to become entrepreneurs such as unemployment, underemployment, and the desire to achieve a more comfortable balance between family and work responsibilities,” Ben-Yoseph said.

Gail Zelitzky, a student in SNL’s MAAPS program, has been helping small business owners start their own businesses for years in her work locally and with the Small Business Administration in Washington, D.C. Now she wants to write a book about how entrepreneurs can maintain their innovation and creativity as their new businesses develop and how to position their businesses for growth.

“It’s not so much what you do as how you do it,” said Zelitzky, of Chicago. “Innovation is what sets us apart. It’s another way, especially for women. Women own 50 percent of the small businesses in the U.S. because their skills and leadership are not recognized in corporate America.”

In recent years, Catherine Marienau, a faculty mentor in the MAAPS program, has seen a shift in her students from retooling to work for an organization to creating their own. In the winter 2010 quarter, 20 MAAPS student began the program, the largest group she’s ever had, Marienau said. Only three of the students are employed full-time by an organization or company; traditionally the opposite has been true.

“The shift is going more toward the independents, some by design and some by necessity,” Marienau said. Started in 1984, the MAAPS program is the only program of its kind in the U.S. to combine professional study with liberal learning.

These “entrepreneurial learners” come with an idea for what they want to study and a desire to build and manage their own learning processes – and a commitment to make a difference.  “As a faculty mentor, I’m doing more coaching to help individuals be more strategic about what they want to contribute in ways that can give them a competitive edge,” Marienau said. “Not only is it what do they want to learn or what do they want to be able to do. It’s what do you want to do that’s going to make you competitive.

“Our self-directed MAAPS students are people with ingenuity, creativity and a thirst for continuous learning. These are the kinds of skills and habits of mind that thought leaders, corporate learning leaders and the literature herald as what’s needed in the changing workplace,” Marienau said. “The paradox is that many of these people are choosing the entrepreneurial route where they can put their talents to full use.”

About the School for New Learning (SNL)

Established in 1972, SNL is one of the first programs in the nation expressly designed to serve the needs of adult learners balancing work, family and school. It has earned an international reputation for its competence-based approach to learning that offers innovative, adult-focused curricula and degree programs. One of SNL’s most unique features is that it allows students to receive class credit for their professional and personal experience.

Coleman Entrepreneurship Center

An extension of DePaul’s Entrepreneurship Program, the Coleman Entrepreneurship Center is one of the most prestigious and acclaimed programs in the nation.  DePaul was recently ranked among the nation's top 10 universities for entrepreneurship education in Entrepreneur Magazine's annual “Best Schools for Entrepreneurs.” The Coleman Center supports student learning by providing them with unique and experiential learning opportunities outside the classroom, and engages faculty members as advisors, speakers, and clients

About DePaul

With more than 25,000 students, DePaul University is the largest Catholic university in the United States and the largest private, non-profit university in the Midwest. The university offers approximately 275 graduate and undergraduate programs of study on two Chicago campuses, four suburban campuses and three international locations. Founded in 1898, DePaul remains committed to providing a quality education through personal attention to students from a wide range of backgrounds. For more information, visit www.depaul.edu.