Lehigh Receives $5 Million Gift
Lehigh University has received a $5 million gift from the Dexter F. and Dorothy H. Baker Foundation. The gift will go to the Baker Institute for Entrepreneurship, Creativity and Innovation.
The Baker Institute was founded in 2010 by a gift from engineer, entrepreneur and business executive, Dexter Baker ’50 ’57G ’81H and his wife Dorothy. The Baker Institute provides and participates in a network of entrepreneurship-related programs and activities open to students of all disciplines. The Baker Foundation’s Dexter F. and Dorothy H. Baker Legacy Fund established a fund to provide a base of support for Institute initiatives.
The programs of the Baker Institute, which is directed by Todd A. Watkins, the Arthur F. Searing Professor of Economics, are open to everyone within the Lehigh University community. Student enrollment in entrepreneurial courses has quadrupled to more than 500 enrollments per year since the founding of the institute.
There has also been a 17-fold increase in participants in extracurricular programs and a five-fold increase in the number of entrepreneurs active in the mentorship network. The number of ventures launched by students and faculty has more than doubled, to about 60 per year.
Among the Institute’s signature programs that are attaining national attention for students are the EUREKA! Ventures Competition Series, the immersive entrepreneurial experiences of Lehigh Silicon Valley and Lehigh NY Startup, campus-wide iDeX idea exchange and the new Launch BayC accelerator for early-phase startups founded by Lehigh University students.
Carol Baker, a trustee of the Baker Foundation, daughter of the founders and a member of the Baker Institute Advisory Council explained, “We think the idea of instilling creativity, driving innovation and providing the entrepreneurial tools to bring new ideas forward is a timeless endeavor. We are making a long-term commitment to Lehigh to assure that students both today and tomorrow have access to exciting programs that will spur their creative spirit to positively shape the future.”
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Erin Purcell
Staff Writer, covering MetroMBA's news beat for New York, Philadelphia, and Boston.
