For the next five weeks, 51 Pennsylvania high schools students and 14 students from other countries will learn what it takes to be successful business leaders. The students are all participating in the 2005 Governor's School for Global Entrepreneurship, which has been held at Lehigh since 2001. Lehigh's program is unique among the eight Governor's Schools, since it is the only one to sponsor foreign students. This year the students come from Afghanistan, Antigua, Barbados, Denmark, Israel, Italy, Mexico, Palestine, Romania , Ukraine and Zimbabwe.



Funding for the Governor's School is provided by the Pennsylvania Department of Education, Lehigh's College of Education and College of Business and Economics. "Fundamental to democracy is education, and one most of the most important things that we can do, based upon the current global situation, is to expose a number of individuals to different kinds of educational processes,” said Sally A. White, professor and dean, College of Education . “Having the international students be part of Governor's School is just another extension of the College of Education 's philosophy that education can empower and make a difference in the lives of individuals, not only across Pennsylvania , but across the country and the world."

Lehigh University faculty teaches the core courses that students take each week. Among the offerings are Understanding the Marketplace, Industry Infrastructure, Ideas to Design to Market, and Going Global. Students also select elective courses on a rotating basis that include, E-commerce, Leadership Style, Virtual Modeling and Prototyping, Networking Around the Globe, Win-Win Negotiating, Starting High Tech Businesses, Business Ethics, Understanding the Stock Market, Entrepreneurship and the Arts, and Creative Problem Solving.

At the heart of the program is the Entrepreneurial Experience. Teams of students are assigned to work with a company operating in the Lehigh Valley to address real-world problems. The students prepare a formal business plan and do a presentation for the company executives as well as the president of Lehigh.



The students enrolled in this year's Governor's School for Global Entrepreneurship, and their mentors, pose for a photo at Campus Square before breaking into teams and visiting a variety of Lehigh Valley enterprises. Each team works on site with executives of companies and organizations to solve real-world business problems.

A team of students from the Governor's School visited Martin Guitar in Nazareth, PA recently, where they watched several types of stringed instruments being assembled. They are: (sitting, front) Meikaela Zwieryznski of Pittsburgh, Pa., (rear, left to right) Elizabeth Blazey of Wayne , PA , Allison Jedinak, the group's mentor, Alexis Petrovich of Allentown, PA, Alex Baran of Villanova, PA, Lacy Zhang of Lansdale, PA, and Avinash Uttamchandani of St. Maarten.

After the tour, the group met with company officials to discuss Martin's line of strings and the various channels through which the company is currently marketing them. The students will develop a plan to increase the sale of the strings that they will present to Martin Guitar executives, during their last week at Lehigh.