education / MENTORSHIP
MENTORSHIP
Students in the I&E Certificate have access to mentors who are either entrepreneurial Duke alumni or involved in the entrepreneurial ecosystem. Twenty-six mentors have worked with the keystone and capstone classes over the last three semesters.
Mentors visit classes and work with students in the field during their experiential requirements. Students have participated in nearly 260 experiences with mentors since the inception of the certificate, adding up
to over 60,000 hours of learning outside the classroom. During the 2016-17 academic year, students participated in 85 experiences with mentors totaling well over 20,000 hours.
A gift from Dave Near (T’91, B’95) enabled Duke I&E to create a staff position that focuses on building connections between our certificate students and mentors as well as establishing experiential opportunities
that fulfill the certificate requirement.
MATT TOLNICK T’05
FOUNDER AND CEO OF LAWLESS JERKY & DUKE I&E MENTOR
“As Duke students and alumni, I believe that we have a responsibility to the Duke community to remain active and engage. In growing my business, Lawless Jerky, I have asked for help from other members of the community, and I feel compelled to pay it forward. Plus, fostering interconnectedness between the classes, decades, and even generations of Dukies is something that I’m committed to being a part of. In the case of being a mentor, I hope to bring a dose of real-life entrepreneurial experience to students considering diving further into their own entrepreneurial passions.”
Duke alumni who are interested in working with our students can sign up to serve as mentors here: http://bit.ly/iementorship