Franklin & Marshall College will develop and pilot a new entrepreneurship center – the Venture and Impact Studio – thanks to support from alumni entrepreneurs. The Center will integrate innovation, problem-solving, and entrepreneurial skill-building across the curriculum and throughout F&M's campus.

The initiative is possible thanks to the generosity of fashion designer Veronica Beard ’94, real estate investor Robert L. Freedman ’70, venture capitalist Dean Hatton ’82, and business owners and restaurateurs Nicholas G. Nicholas ’70, P’07 and Jordan Nicholas ’07. Their philanthropy will provide the funding to plan, develop, and launch the Entrepreneurship Center beginning in the 2026-2027 academic year.

“For generations, Franklin & Marshall College has helped graduates develop their talents as entrepreneurs. Thanks to the leadership and generosity of Veronica Beard, Bob Freedman, Dean Hatton, and Nick and Jordan Nicholas, we will now make that an intentional part of the F&M experience,” said President Andrew Rich. “Our Center will be a catalyst for students, faculty, and neighbors, empowering them to leverage a future-ready liberal arts foundation with practical, hands-on experiences that reward curiosity, resilience, and innovation.”

The Center will work closely with F&M faculty to ensure programming and opportunities are prominent throughout the curriculum. The inaugural faculty advisory board consists of Associate Professor of Sociology Caroline Faulkner, Associate Professor of Physics Etienne Gagnon, Associate Professor of Marketing Jessica Keech, Professor of Visual Arts Kostis Kourelis, Professor of Dance Pamela Vail, and Carmie L. and Beatrice J. Creitz Professor of Mathematics Christina Weaver.

Tapping F&M’s Historic Strengths

The entrepreneurship center builds upon an ethos deeply rooted in F&M’s history, beginning with College namesake and founding father Benjamin Franklin. It is a culture reflected across the curriculum and in the success of our more than 30,000 alumni around the world.

“At F&M, entrepreneurship is part of our DNA. We create new knowledge and transfer it into practice,” said Sunita Kramer ’92, F&M’s provost and dean of the faculty. “It’s a mindset that spans industries, but it also spans social issues. Entrepreneurship requires problem solving, creativity, and the ability to put new and existing knowledge to work, answering the needs of our communities, here in Lancaster and around the world.”

"At F&M, entrepreneurship is part of our DNA. We create new knowledge and transfer it into practice."

Sunita Kramer '92, Provost and Dean of the Faculty

The Center will engage students across every field of study and provide opportunities for faculty and for Lancaster County residents to benefit from new resources and collaborations, bypassing limitations imposed by structural silos or individual budgets. At its core, the Center will empower the growth of entrepreneurial skills and facilitate learning-by-doing experiences. As the Center grows, it will support an innovation engine designed to help solve institutional challenges for local businesses and non-profits, act as an industry research partner for new and reimagined entrepreneurial projects, and provide funding for a venture studio, where students and faculty can develop, prototype, and scale new ideas.

“The entrepreneurship center at a liberal arts college like F&M, in a city like Lancaster, is a thrilling opportunity,” said Kramer. “We have the ability to infuse entrepreneurial thinking into every student’s experience across every discipline, and to be an incubator space for campus and for the community to share great ideas. We can leverage the expertise of our faculty, their research, and the scholarship that’s already underway to take concepts to the next level. This has the potential to benefit every student, every faculty member, and every community member, and it will take place in an accessible space where new ideas actually get implemented.”

Embracing Risk Across Disciplines

Leading the development and strategy of the initiative is Joaquin Villarreal, director of entrepreneurship at Franklin & Marshall College. He stresses that the Center will empower students across every field of study rather than limiting entrepreneurship to a single academic track. A benefit of that mentality is that students learn from both the successes and failures of their peers in an environment that rewards novel approaches and resilient thinking.

“One of the main characteristics of entrepreneurship is the ability to put something valuable at risk. That doesn't have to be money: It could be your time. It could be your comfort with a stressful situation,” said Villarreal. “Entrepreneurship involves learning that you may fail, and you have to be okay with that. Our Center will help students step out of their comfort zone and help them consider the roles they can grow into. That's the intersection between leadership and entrepreneurship.”

Villarreal says the Center will be an open, supportive ecosystem that encourages experimentation and creative problem-solving across campus for students, faculty, and staff, while leveraging community and alumni partnerships. It will also help provide structure for emerging and existing entrepreneurs by providing transparent access to institutional expertise, seed funding for new and scalable ideas, and programming to help teach and practice methodologies that foster problem solving and entrepreneurial agency throughout the College.

“We want our students to recognize immediately that entrepreneurship is a skill that must be practiced, just like skiing, just like soccer,” he continued. “Just like you're learning other skills in the course of your liberal arts education, entrepreneurship is both a perspective and a muscle that likely ties very well into what you’re already doing or planning on doing.”