Narayanamurti's business education program at UCSB puts a heavy emphasis on outside professional involvement.

Among the programs it currently offers are a support network of entrepreneurs who advise students and a series of lectures on starting and managing businesses.

"We get a lot of heavy-duty folks [to speak at CEEM]," says Travis O. Apple, a 1999 UCSB graduate and the founder and president of an interactive CD-ROM and Internet design company. "They really know their stuff on how to start a company. They really want to share their knowledge."

Narayanamurti's program also organizes all-day entrepreneurship conferences and created a student association, called Entrepreneurial Technology Ventures (ETV), to encourage teamwork between students interested in the subject.

While in the past the College has forbidden student's from using University resources to start their own businesses, CEEM offers financial incentives for student entrepreneurship by sponsoring an annual business plan competition.

Students, working individually or in small teams, submit plans describing the concept for the new business and the steps they plan to take to establish it. The competition offers a first prize of $10,000 in addition to smaller runner-up awards. They school also offers two entrepreneurship scholarships.

In the past, Harvard has not offered for-credit undergraduate courses or degrees in creating your own business.

And if the CEEM is a precedent for Harvard's new institute, the College may continue to avoid formal offerings in these areas.