Gifts Totaling $7 Million in Support of Entrepreneurship at Haverford

Many students choose Haverford for its focus on the ethical application of knowledge. As a result, generations of Ford entrepreneurs have applied their education to address pressing social and market needs. Indeed, Forbes ranks Haverford among its "Most Entrepreneurial Colleges." 

Such success has come with only limited curricular structures that teach students how to identify and nurture their entrepreneurial ideas and provide insight into bringing them to the public.  

Alums Bill Harris '49 and Jim Kinsella '82, together with Kinsella's partner in business and life, Bob McNeal, recognized this gap and have stepped in to bridge it. Thanks to their generous pledges, which together total $7 million, Haverford will create and support a new multidisciplinary initiative in entrepreneurship. Its projected initial cost of $12 million includes endowment for tenure-line faculty and support for ongoing programs. 

A renowned surgeon and longtime Harvard medical school professor, Harris pioneered many key developments of the modern total hip. But he had no company to manufacture and then bring his solutions to patients, either locally or worldwide. Thus, he was forced to become what he calls an "accidental entrepreneur" in order to recognize his dreams. In an effort to bring this important capacity into the curriculum at Haverford, he reached out to Jim Kinsella '82 and Kinsella’s husband Bob McNeal, who had helped launch the Haverford Innovation Program (HIP) in 2017 to provide resources for students with entrepreneurial ideas.  

Harris, who with his wife, Nan BMC '52, spearheaded the Environmental Studies department within the Bi-Co, envisioned a similar initiative for entrepreneurialism. 

"To distinguish entrepreneurship from simply an isolated brilliant idea, one must create a product and deliver it to the people who need it. Over my lifetime I have seen many great ideas become a reality when people are willing to take the risks to implement them in the world," says Harris. "After 80 years of deep commitment to Haverford since I first set foot on this campus as a student, Nan and I are delighted to be able to fund this initiative which encourages all students to continue to innovate forward and ensure the College thrives well beyond the next 80 years."

"Our philanthropy is focused on change, specifically investing in efforts that we believe will make a positive impact on the world," says Kinsella, who with his husband built numerous tech companies. "From our perspective, the most powerful tools to accelerate change are business and entrepreneurship. But success in those arenas can only be realized by identifying and equipping the right stewards. When I returned to campus to teach in 1991, I was humbled every day by Haverfordians. The College truly produces the most thoughtful and change-oriented people I have ever met." It was in his faculty office where Kinsella and McNeal launched their first company.

College President Wendy Raymond has been struck by the number of Fords — students and alumni — who have harnessed the power of entrepreneurship to lead lives of ambition, purpose, and service to the greater good. "By integrating entrepreneurial thinking into Haverford’s commitment to societal impact, this initiative will better prepare our students to establish themselves as ethical leaders and changemakers in their communities and beyond," says Raymond. "I am extremely grateful that Bill, Jim, and Bob have chosen to make such a significant investment in Haverford and our students’ futures. In doing so, they are enabling Fords to create enterprises that foster a more equitable and sustainable world."

The Road to 2030
Haverford 2030, the College’s strategic plan, calls for integrating ethics, innovation, problem-solving, and impact more fully and visibly into the student experience, including through support for students’ entrepreneurial endeavors. As outlined in "Aspire," and "Connect," two of the plan's three central pillars, a confluence of academic and co-curricular initiatives will support students in developing the knowledge and tools required to build products and solutions to address real-world needs. 

An Ideal Setting
Haverford’s model of student development promotes agency and actualization in and out of the classroom, traits, and habits of mind that extend naturally to entrepreneurial thinking. The best articulation of this kind of student agency around problem-solving is the College's Honor Code, a compact that students amend and ratify annually. Haverford students’ leadership and self-governance are built into the college experience like few other undergraduate institutions. 

Haverford’s entrepreneurial spirit can be traced to the College’s founding on Quaker principles, which value a practical education aimed at improving society. That tenet is embedded in Haverford’s curriculum, including the College's signature capstone project, which all Fords majoring at Haverford have had to complete to graduate. Haverford's faculty is deeply committed to this model of intellectual discovery and actualization in partnership with students.

In recent years, several new related activities have already begun to create formative opportunities for budding entrepreneurs at the College, including the Microfinance and Impact Investing Initiative (MI3) and the Haverford Innovations Program (HIP). This new initiative will expand these offerings to provide a more comprehensive and robust curricular approach that connects liberal arts disciplines with entrepreneurial theories and practices.

These gifts will allow faculty to develop the initiative in stages, with program components able to come online as funding becomes available within the initial $12 million fundraising goal. An early call for proposals from the faculty's Strategic Curriculum and Personnel Committee elicited 12 submissions from 10 different academic departments, suggesting diverse interest in shaping this growing element in Haverford's liberal arts curriculum. Current Haverford curricular and program resources like MI3 and HIP will support and complement its development. 

"The world is changing, and Haverford attracts students and sends alums into the world who have a greater propensity for driving positive change," says Kinsella. "You can see that across medicine, law, academia, and, for me most importantly, business. Bill’s premise is that Fords need a stronger base for entrepreneurialism. Our notion is that we can help drive change faster by providing Fords the tools that will allow them to get their ideas and businesses off the ground more quickly."