University of Colorado at Denver and Health Science Center

Courses & Schedules

Courses

The Bard Center for Entrepreneurship is an accredited graduate-level academic program for individuals who seek entrepreneurial guidance regarding their existing or future business ventures. The Bard Center takes entrepreneurship from the classroom to the real world and provides hands on learning opportunities for students in all areas of new venture creation and corporate innovation.

The Bard Center offers an outstanding entrepreneurship curriculum that incorporates instruction, mentoring, and support from outstanding Business School faculty, as well as from outside professionals with expertise in new business development. The Bard Center offers courses in entrepreneurship that explore new venture design, finance structuring, and business plan creation. Students learn from case studies, classroom instruction, and guest lectures featuring successful entrepreneurs and renowned business leaders.

These professional classroom and online courses can be applied as elective credits toward a graduate business degree at the University of Colorado Denver, as well as toward other graduate degree programs at the university.

Bard Center Courses
Bioscience
Business Consulting
Business Planning for Social Entrepreneurs
Business Plans and Seed Financing
Corporate Entrepreneurship
Design and Manage Entrepreneurial Organizations
Entrepreneurial Financial Management
Fundamentals of Entrepreneurship
Innovation in the Social Sector
International Entrepreneurship
Leadership in New Ventures
Legal and Ethical Issues of Entrepreneurship
Marketing a New Business
New Concept Development
Real Estate for the Entrepreneur
Strategic Planning for Entrepreneurs

Bioscience

The Bard Center offers a bioscience internship in the spring semester to give students the opportunity to work directly with an emerging Colorado bioscience company. Students who are selected to participate will receive a Bard Center scholarship to cover internship tuition costs. For more information or to apply, contact Beth Polizzotto at bard.center@cudenver.edu or 303-620-4050.

Business Consulting

This course helps students understand how to build their experience and current knowledge base to help them realize their future business consulting goals. Students will learn to identify root problems, deliver recommendations, and implement the optimum business solutions, regardless whether they serve as inside consultants for one organization or as outside consultants for many organizations.

Business Planning for Social Entrepreneurs

Business planning is a key process both in new and existing organizations. The plan is a road map for achieving your organizational goals and is a vehicle for thinking about, discussing, researching and
analyzing your strategies for sustainability. It is a living document that helps you plan for the future, measure your achievements, manage your risks, stay focused, and give your organization the best possible
chance for success. It is especially important for social entrepreneurs, who are working to solve social and environmental problems on a large scale.

Business Plans and Seed Financing*

This course teaches students how to prepare business plans for new ventures and reviews financing options for startup businesses. Students will gain information by evaluating new business opportunities, reviewing case studies, learning from the real-world experiences of entrepreneurs and investors, and writing a business plan, either individually or as part of a team.

Corporate Entrepreneurship

This course helps students tap into and reinforce their visionary leadership and strategic thinking skills to help them create breakthrough ideas, the kind that can transform business models and processes and create a competitive advantage. Using case studies for illustrative purposes, this course will provide a comprehensive model to systematically identify opportunities for innovation in core processes, organizational structure, technology, products, and partnership networks.

Design and Manage New Entrepreneurial Organizations

This course teaches students how to build an organization that will sustain high performance over a long period of time and become a premier institution in its field. The course demonstrates that the essence of entrepreneurial greatness lies in the dedication to building companies around a sense of purpose—around core values that infuse work with the kind of meaning that extends far beyond personal remuneration and a company's bottom line.

Entrepreneurial Financial Management*

This course provides a foundation for the financial management of a small business. Topics covered include the financial and legal aspects of setting up different forms of small businesses, financial reporting and cash flow analysis for small businesses, financial planning and budgeting techniques, working capital management and long-term asset decisions, practices in obtaining funds, business valuation, franchising, lease versus buy decisions, financial aspects of international trade, and different methods of obtaining capital.

Fundamentals of Entrepreneurship*

This course focuses on entrepreneurship, which might be thought of as a set of processes associated with creating opportunities and then finding the resources needed to develop and profit from those opportunities. This course shares the perspectives of both entrepreneurs and stakeholder groups, as well as considers the concepts, skills, expertise, attitudes, information, and alternatives needed to find and develop new business opportunities in venues that range from garage startups to corporations.

Innovation in the Social Sector

The Social Sector is addressing the pressing social and environmental needs facing us today, primarily through the work of non-profit and non-governmental organizations.  This course will introduce you to the context, models, trends, opportunities, and challenges in social entrepreneurship.  Additionally, it will provide you with the tools to identify opportunities for innovation in the social sector.  In the classroom you will be engaged in a learning community and collaboratively develop a deeper understanding of this emerging field.  At the end of this course you will develop an opportunity analysis for the social venture of your choice.

International Entrepreneurship

This course provides students with an overview of key trends and developments in international business. The course familiarizes students with selected theories and concepts of international business and with the ways in which they affect entrepreneurial ventures. In addition, the course demonstrates how economic, political, legal, and sociocultural forces impact the way firms function, as well as familiarizes students with the international dimensions of such entrepreneurial functions as finance, marketing, accounting, organizational design, and management.

Leadership in New Ventures*

This course provides students with an overview of key leadership principles for creating strategies and managing teams when launching new ventures. Students will learn about the leadership concepts critical to gaining true organizational commitment, review case studies relevant to common business issues, examine the principles of strategic planning, and learn how visionary leadership is required to develop a successful organization.

Legal and Ethical Issues of Entrepreneurship

This course addresses the legal issues most frequently encountered by entrepreneurs and others involved in startups and in small, closely held, or family businesses. Course topics include choice of business form, legal aspects of raising capital, taxation, intellectual property law, employment law, product liability, e-commerce, and management of litigation issues.

Marketing a New Business

This course helps entrepreneurs learn the latest techniques involved in taking a new business or service concept to market. It includes a theoretical analysis of how products differ, product lifecycle issues, qualitative and quantitative research techniques, consumer behavior issues, strategic positioning given the nature of the product, the company and the external environment, promotion of new concepts, and issues regarding implementation of the marketing solutions related to new ventures.

New Concept Development

This course helps entrepreneurs identify potential new business opportunities and assess the viability of those opportunities in various industries and markets. Working both individually and in groups, students study marketing theory to gain an understanding of how to evaluate the attractiveness of industries and the potential receptiveness of markets.

Real Estate for the Entrepreneur

This course addresses issues critical to the success of any new venture location, including business site selection and negotiation of real estate leases and purchases. The course also covers general principles of real estate development, financing and urban planning, zoning, affordable housing, ADA issues, property management, real estate investing, historic preservation, and selected taxation issues.

Strategic Planning for Entrepreneurs

This course helps students learn how to use tools and frameworks to create, implement, and update a strategic plan to guide an entrepreneurial organization on its path to future success.

* To obtain a Certificate in Entrepreneurial Studies, students must take three Bard Center courses, including one of the following: Business Plans and Seed Financing, Entrepreneurial Financial Management, Fundamentals of Entrepreneurship, or Leadership in New Ventures.