To Illinois Wesleyan University senior Mannat Kandal, the new Petrick Idea Center provides so much opportunity to collaborate with peers and experts in their field that “it opens up a huge new horizon for students.”
The best part, the psychology major said, is it brings people from so many different disciplines together.
“If I have any idea, I can easily come here and have access to a founder studio, experts in business, and find ways to connect my ideas to tangible solutions and be able to make something out of them,” said Kandal.
This new horizon for Titans came into view last week for two federal officials who visited Bloomington: U.S. Rep. Darin LaHood, R-Dunlap, and Kelly Loeffler, who heads the Small Business Administration. The Petrick Idea Center officially opened on the IWU campus in September.
After the tour, Kandal was among a cohort of students who joined a roundtable discussion with Loeffler and LaHood.
As a student in the humanities, Kandal said it was an incredible experience to be part of discussions on entrepreneurship and innovation with the two U.S. officials. She said they had a great conversation about starting and running a small business, and what it means to develop an entrepreneurial mindset from a college age.
"[It] just speaks really to what Illinois Wesleyan is about with our liberal arts education and now even the conception of the Petrick Idea Center, for someone like me … to be involved in such discussions and even have the opportunity to think about how I can center my love for community impact and social impact to more sustainable, tangible solutions through entrepreneurship and innovation is just a really valuable opportunity,” Kandal said.
‘All things STEM, humanities, art’ with business
Kandal said the latest addition to the IWU campus houses so many studios, ranging from a food lab to a wood shop, that the resources and mentorship available to her are very exciting.
One of her goals, she said, is to help connect her fellow students with the center.
“I am exploring a lot of intersections with psychology and business, so [I’m] trying to find avenues to sort of explore mental health in a way that can be beneficial to the community,” she said.
Kandal said she’s certain the Petrick Idea Center has the resources to help her do that.
Ben Hage, director of the Petrick Idea Center, told LaHood and Loeffler during the tour that one of IWU’s goals is to establish an “angel investment network.”
“Our goal is to create new opportunities for founders to access potential investment capital, the mentorship, expertise and relationships that can help their business grow,” he stated in a press release.
During the tour, Hage said open space was designed into the center to help foster innovation among students.
“Students cannot come in and out of this building without running into each other. And so, that provides a ton of organic opportunities,” Hage said.
Whether it’s a hackathon, or a fashion class designing and fabricating new clothing, or work in the woodshop, Hage said the Petrick Idea Center can accommodate it all.
Addressing the tour guests, IWU President Sheahon Zenger said he’s been part of 27 building developments in his life.
“This is the most creative I’ve ever seen, and on budget and on time,” he said.
While entrepreneurship is often thought to be paired with business or economics, Zenger said the university intentionally decided to have the Petrick Idea Center around its art building.
“We wanted to make sure that all things STEM and all things humanities and all things art were involved. And so, by putting it around the art building, you see the benefit of that already,” he said.
In an interview, Zenger said the Petrick Idea Center has been referred to as a “greenhouse of ideas.” Instead, he told WGLT that he likes to call it “a weight room for the mind.”
“Everyone gets to play here,” Zenger said.
After the roundtable, he said the students surely left LaHood and Loeffler impressed.
“They each bring so much to the table,” he said.
Entrepreneurship and regulations
In addition to lending and providing access to capital, Loeffler said the SBA helps strengthen small businesses in the U.S. through counseling.
She said institutions like IWU host small business development centers [SBDC] that offer counseling to small businesses or aspiring entrepreneurs.
“We provide hundreds of millions of dollars of funding to this type of effort every single year to ensure that the resources are available to over 1,000 SBDCs across America,” the SBA administrator said.
Loeffler said she grew up about 15 miles west of Bloomington in Stanford. She said working inside a family business from an early age was an incredibly powerful experience that never left her.
When asked about large obstacles small business owners and aspiring entrepreneurs are facing, Loeffler said it’s the fear of tax increases. Business owners in growth mode also need skilled workers, she added.
“That's what's exciting about places like [Illinois] Wesleyan University that [are] equipping the workforce of the future … whether it's entrepreneurship or a career,” she said.
LaHood added that the Working Families Tax Cuts Act passed last year, among other efforts, has allowed small and medium-sized businesses to grow.
“Are there other things we need to work on related to the economy?” LaHood asked. “Of course. Fuel prices, energy prices, some of those other things, but from a tax perspective and a regulatory environment, which we continue to work on, those are really fundamental to the success of small businesses.”
LaHood said by listening to Hage and IWU students, he could tell “this is the future.” By planning for AI and quantum computing to be a huge part of the future economy, LaHood said the work being done at IWU and its new center will give students the skills to compete in the workforce.
“This ought to be the model for others as we look to the future,” he said.
