ANNUAL REPORT
2022 In Review - 2023 What's New
January 2023 | Issue v1. n1.
Economic Development
The Power is in Partnerships: Building Startup Sustainability
The CSE brings together corporate, academic, governmental, and community partners to build the relational collateral necessary to advance our pillars of excellence. Our pillars of Economic Development, Education, and Social & Community Innovation are continually evaluated, incorporating input from all stakeholders. Learn more about how our pillars align with strategic organizational or corporate goals, including your strategic goals for 2023.
Learning While Earning is the Way: Real Estate Acquisition Program for Students (REAPS)
Challenges with student retention and persistence are real issues that are complicated by life demands for many scholars. . Circumstantial demands too often create hardship and make it difficult to remain enrolled in school, especially when the demands are intertwined with financial struggles. Any serious remedy to the problem must include interventions that offer learning opportunities with real-time earnings and pathways to positive economic mobility. That is the aim of the Real Estate Acquisition Program for Students (REAPS).

REAPS was launched at the 2022 Economic Inclusion Conference @ Coppin (EICAC) with...
The Entrepreneurial Trifecta: Manufacturing, Making, & Economic Mobility
Some may ask "Why small-scale manufacturing and entrepreneurship?" Our immediate response is "How much time do you have?" because the list of reasons is so long and so rich with lasting possibilities, we could spend quite some time proving answers. Let us begin by recalling the rich legacy of Black presence in manufacturing as a plentiful labor supply with a proven history of working in difficult conditions for little or even no wages. When it came to escaping the oppressive, life-threatening conditions of the South, it was the industrializing North that was proven to offer employment and educational opportunities for Black migrants. We may even say that the plentiful but inequitable opportunities provided a pathway to the middle class through...
Education
They Can Be Whom They See and Improve Literacy Too: New Psalmist Future Founders Literacy Program
To broaden the pathways to leadership and ownership, we must reach young scholars as early as possible. We must use every advantage that social-emotional learning theory has to offer while improving fundamental skills required for success, such as literacy. It is also important to create collaborative, inter-institutional networks between academia, community organizations, the corporate sector, and public offices to build narratives of success that will establish sustainable socio-economic progress. A collaboration between...
The Next Generation of Wealth Builders: Coppin Entrepreneurship Organization for Students (CEOs)
You may have seen them serving as ambassadors in their CEOs polo shirts at one of our many events. You may have supported their entrepreneurial dreams at the Student Entrepreneurship Fair held during Global Entrepreneurship Week in November. If you are a student, you may have received an invitation to join the wealth-building assemblage. Regardless of how or where you encountered the CEOs, the experience put you in touch with the core constituents of our work-- the students at Coppin State University. The educational experience for these students is...
Academic Entrepreneurship Starts with Intellectual Curiosity: Faculty Fellows Research Program
Faculty energize student learning and serve as key drivers of the epistemological enterprise. They are the producers and purveyors of knowledge that catalyze learning and student achievement. Research is the process by which the "raw material" of learning is unearthed and integrated into human understanding and practice. Our understanding of this process is creating an awaking of the undeniable importance of universities such as Coppin State in the stratum of U.S. higher education. Our nation needs the knowledge assets we...
The Business of Giving Back: Alumni Advisory Board
The legacy of Coppin State University is alive in the hearts of those who have received the benefit of an Eagle education. The impact is staggering when considering those who attended CSU, their families, their employers, their effect on tax revenue, and their presence in the region where the majority of graduates remain. The value of Eagles who are now soaring beyond "the nest" is not only experienced in their social and economic impact. Their value is experienced in their assisting those who have yet to take flight. Their desire to...
One-Year Credential: Entrepreneurship & Innovation Certificate
Two statistical realities that are symbols of urgency regarding entrepreneurship educational opportunities. The first statistic reported by Dow Jones VentureSource in 2018 revealed the disappointing reality that "Only 4 percent of Black American businesses survive the start-up stage, even though 20 percent of Black Americans start businesses." While there are many contributing factors to the lack of sustainability, increasing access to effective learning opportunities would be a positive place to start efforts designed to reverse these troubling numbers.

The second reality became apparent during a campus poll of Coppin student entrepreneurs. Less than 13% had any formal entrepreneurship training. The lack of formal preparation for the complex, intense demand of entrepreneurship is why the one-year, 18-credit certificate in Entrepreneurship and Innovation offers great value.
Information That Matters: Westside on the Rise Webinar Series
Westside on the Rise Webinar Series started as an informational podcast about emerging economic development activities in the West North Avenue corridor and is co-hosted by Maryland State Senator Antonio Hayes (40th District) and Dr. Ron Williams, Director of the CSU Center for Strategic Entrepreneurship. The first six episodes feature a wide range of exciting influencers including:

  1. Dr. Anthony L. Jenkins, President of CSU
  2. Dr. Sadie R. Gregory, Dean of the CSU College of Business
  3. Hope Mims, CSE Alumni Advisory Board Chair and CEO & Principal Broker of Mims Realty Group
  4. David Bramble, Managing Partner of MCB Real Estate, LLC
  5. B. Cole, Co-owner of Dovecote Cafe
  6. A Deep Dive on the Cannabis Legislation with Olivia Naugle and Davon Love
 
Enjoy another look inside Westside on the Rise and be on the lookout for upcoming episodes featuring CSE partners and collaborators.
Social and Community Innovation
From Applied Research to Policy Impact
Coppin State University is the holder of many distinctions that sometimes go unnoticed and undervalued. Among its many merits, CSU is the first public HBCU in the nation to have a formal relationship with a community-embedded makerspace. The relationship was formalized with the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding during the spring semester of 2017, shortly after Open Works opened as one of the largest, most diverse makerspaces in the country. CSU also conducted the first research of its kind on the organizational effectiveness and economic impact of a makerspace, showing that Open Works contributed over $8 million...
Engagement Begins Before They Arrive: BCPSS Work-Based Learning Pathway Advisory Committees
West Baltimore is rich with an abundance of educational assets. From the many K through 12 schools, a community college, a four-year comprehensive university, and organizations dedicated to training the emerging workforce, CSU is the anchor institution and academic innovation center that serves as the nucleus for positive economic mobility. We are the answer that the 21st-century economy has been waiting for. Our demonstrated leadership in value-added education has been shaped by 122 years of doing what is required to...
A Learning Community of Thought Leaders: Economic Inclusion Conference @ Coppin
The Economic Inclusion Conference was first held in 2016 during a much different time. It was still a time of in-person conferences without virtual options and when networking was truly a "contact sport." The 2016 EICAC attracted Minority Business Enterprise (MBE) vendors, keynote presentations by national and regional influencers, and an evening business pitch competition showcasing the best that our student population had to offer. When the EICAC emerged again in 2021, the five years had brought a pandemic, new CSU leadership, and a very different economic landscape filled with challenges that were only matched by the new levels of opportunity. It was in a climate of extreme disruption that we delivered EICAC 2022 and now stand approximately 90 days away from EICAC 2023.

The conference theme for EICAC 2023 is Building Innovative Networks of Collaboration. The interactive experience will showcase the relationships and collaborative programs that have enabled the CSE to make great strides. In addition to providing a forum where collaborators can share, the CSE will place particular emphasis on what we have learned. The intensity of hyper-connectedness and hyper-expectations driven by virtual workspaces have enabled us, but also overwhelmed us. We will examine what this means for competitiveness, productivity, and entrepreneurial opportunity.

EICAC 2023 is scheduled for April 27th and will be a hybrid event with approximately 75% of the activities occurring in person. Save the date. Additional information will be released in the coming weeks.
CSE Hosts the First Gubernatorial Forum of the Season
The CSE is fully entrenched in our version of a Triple Helix ecosystem plus one. Our model for economic development consists of academia, the corporate sector, the public sector, and most importantly the community. This quadra-helix model is uniquely Coppin and it is a paradigm that we embrace, own, and take a dominant position. As the most community-connected, community-centric academic institution in the University System of Maryland, we serve with 122 years of trust brokerage experience bridging the divide between under-represented communities and the talent deficits that have risen to the level of threatening national security.

That is why it was appropriate to bring the primary gubernatorial forum, focused on economic development, to West Baltimore. CSU serves as the anchor institution and center of academic innovation and economic growth. As community trust brokers, we take the responsibility of providing access to information and decision-making voices that others may not be able to provide.
The Power of Participation: Local and National Board Representation
One of the most difficult questions asked by those who have entrepreneurial aspirations is "How do I get started?" The question is even more relevant considering that only 4% of Black businesses survive beyond the startup phase. This dire statistic suggests that one of the greatest values an academic entrepreneurship center can add is to help businesses launch well and build sustainability.

Collaborating with local service providers is essential to the CSE’s ability to help budding students, faculty, staff, and community entrepreneurs get off to a start that provides the best possible opportunity for long-term growth and success. One such relationship is...
A Year of Growth and Impact: Seeing is Believing
Seeing is Believing
2022 has been a year of progress and achievements. As we emerged from the sequestered experience of 2020 and 2021, there was a palpable eagerness to reclaim the connectedness required to forge a collaborative future.

We recognize the fact that evidence-based outcomes are communicated qualitatively and quantitatively. We also appreciate the fact that artifacts are also visual. They tell a story while allowing us to reminisce about moments that made an impression and will be with us forever. To that end, we offer a gallery review of some of our important events throughout the year. Even with the digital world of YouTube, TicToc, and other video platforms, still photography can always tell a story. Enjoy!
Metrics Matter: Set Standards, Pursue Goals, Collect Data, Innovate
We believe in assessment and evaluation. Continuous improvement is a process that involves strategy, data, analysis, and innovation. It's an iterative process that never ends. If we have not improved, it's because we have not established key performance metrics and creatively set a course for new and exciting achievements. It's knowing the difference between improving on what we are doing and innovating to do something completely new.

We are transparent about our metrics because we are confident in our process. We have no fear of not meeting measures because we understand the process of innovating to achieve the highest qualitative and quantitative impact. Others may attempt to define standards for us. But we operate from the position that we must define standards and perform in a way that far exceeds what other may have imagined.

These are not statements of arrogance. They represent a belief system that informs behavior. Our beliefs are essential to the CSE culture. Baltimoreans of a certain age and preference for a certain type of entertainment know the establishment whose tagline simply stated "You know if you belong." If you work with the CSE, you know...
 CSE Assessment Areas

  1. Artifactual Development (Publication)
  2. Community Engagement
  3. Corporate Engagement
  4. Funding Acquisition and Revenue Generation (Fee-for-Service)
  5. Inter-institutional Engagement
  6. Intra-institutional Engagement & Support (Faculty, Staff, Students, Alumni)
  7. K-12 Subsector Engagement
  8. Knowledge Development & Dissemination (Research)
  9. Public Sector Engagement
  10. Administrative Efficiencies and Innovation
What's on the way?
2023 will again be filled with exciting activities that demonstrate learning, artefactual, relational, and economic impact. Be on the lookout for announcements about Westside on the Rise: Season II, new cycles of the New Psalmist Future Founders Literacy Program, the Economic Inclusion Conference @ Coppin EICAC, the EXCEL Project Kickoff, iCorps Summer Launch Cohort, and other new initiatives.