The Fostering an Entrepreneurial Mindset program aims to inspire students and faculty involved in Digital and Public Humanities (DPH) to bring an entrepreneurial mindset to their work. It will help humanities and social sciences students develop digital skills useful in a variety of professional settings, practice how to articulate how their academic training has prepared them for the workforce, and connect with alumni networks and internship opportunities. The programming also will serve as an entry point for faculty interested in integrating DPH into their work, and will prompt beginning and experienced DPH-affiliated faculty to think about their research, teaching, and service in new ways. 

The Fostering an Entrepreneurial Mindset program has two key components: 1) a series of workshops open to faculty and students that will expand participants’ skill-sets and help prepare students for future career pathways; and 2) a competitive, paid internship program that will allow students to apply the skills acquired in their coursework and workshops. 

Fostering an Entrepreneurial Mindset Program Schedule for 2023-2024

Fall Semester

Wednesday, September 13, 1-3 pm: Program Kick-off in 325 Miller Nichols Library

This workshop will be a kick-off event to introduce the program. Students and faculty will learn about entrepreneurial thinking concepts and be encouraged to think creatively about their work at UMKC and, for students, in their career pathways after graduation. The application process for the paid internship component of this program will be covered as well.

Wednesday, October 11, 1-2:30 pm: Introduction to Entrepreneurial Thinking Workshop in 325 Miller Nichols Library

Entrepreneurship is a process that utilizes creative problem-solving to create and capture value for a specific user, audience, or customer. Entrepreneurship applies to more than starting a new business; it can also take place as intrapreneurship (acting in an entrepreneurial way inside of an established organization), or managing one’s career and creative outputs with a portfolio approach.

This workshop will cover and apply basic concepts related to fostering the mindset of an entrepreneur and the entrepreneurial process; key tools and frameworks utilized by entrepreneurs; and how to use these concepts and tools for defining, proposing, and scoping a project for a client or customer.

Wednesday, November 8, 1-2:30 pm: DPH Skills Workshop in the Digital Collaboration Studio on the third floor of the Miller Nichols Library

This workshop will teach students and faculty how to use the BookEye Scanner in the Digital Collaboration Studio production room. Participants will move through the process of scanning a document and extracting text from the scanned document using Adobe Acrobat. 

Spring Semester

Friday, February 16, 10-11:30 pm: Digital Storytelling with StoryMapJS in 312 Miller Nichols Library

In this beginner-level workshop, participants will get a hands-on introduction to creating interactive maps with StoryMapsJS. Work together to create an interactive storymap and brainstorm ideas for using this tool for research and in the classroom. Requires a Google login (Your UM System email will log you into Google Apps).

Wednesday, February 21, 12:30-2:00 pm: Making Your Skills Legible Workshop in 325 Miller Nichols Library

This workshop will focus on helping students effectively communicate to potential employers the skill-sets they have developed through their Humanities, DPH, and Entrepreneurial Thinking training and experiences.

Thursday, February 29, 4-5:30 pm: Digital Humanities Roundtable – Automatically Detecting and Analyzing Literary Allusions and Direct Speech in Ancient Literature, Online Event

Panelists will discuss their work creating the databases and systems to detect literary allusions and direct speech in Ancient Greek and Roman Literature. In addition to their specific projects, panelists will discuss how their general approaches can be modified and applied to works of literature written in English.

Wednesday, March 6, 1-2:30 pm: Spotlight on Entrepreneurial Thinking UMKC Alumni Roundtable in 325 Miller Nichols Library

This roundtable discussion will feature UMKC humanities and social sciences alumni who work in business, industry, digital and public humanities, and non-profits and will focus on the entrepreneurial mindset they bring to their work. This conversation also will include discussions of professional network building, making the most of networking opportunities, developing resumes to communicate skills outside the academic marketplace, seeking grants and start-up funds to start an initiative or business, and more!

Friday, March 8, 10-11:30 AM: Introduction to Text Data Mining in the Digital Collaboration Studio on the third floor of the Miller Nichols Library

Text data mining (TDM) is the computational and statistical analysis of large corpora of texts. In this beginner-level workshop, participants will get an introduction to the general principles of TDM, and learn about a few of the many tools and methods for quantitative analysis of text data, including word frequency, topic modeling, and sentiment analysis. No prior experience in TDM is necessary.

Wednesday, April 10, 1-2:30 pm: DPH Skills Workshop in the Digital Collaboration Studio on the third floor of the Miller Nichols Library

Led by Sandra Enríquez, Associate Professor of History, this workshop will teach students how to use the DCS Recording Studio and will introduce them to oral interview best practices.

Friday, April 12, 10-11:30 am: Introduction to HathiTrust Research Center Analytics, Online Event

The HathiTrust Digital Library provides access to 18+ million digitized items. In this intermediate-level workshop, participants will get an introduction to the powerful tools in HathiTrust Research Center to conduct large-scale computational analysis of the works in the HathiTrust Digital Library to facilitate research. Some familiarity with the concepts of text data mining (like from the Mar. 8 workshop) would be helpful, but is not necessary to fully participate in this workshop. Requires your UM System email to participate.

Wednesday, April 24, 11:30 am-1:30 pm: End-of-year Gathering in 325 Miller Nichols Library

Please join us at the Center for Digital and Public Humanities end-of-year celebration, where we will celebrate all of the phenomenal digital and public humanities related work done by students, faculty, and staff.