Education
FSU brings entrepreneurship educators from around the world to Tallahassee for training
Key Points
- FSU’s Jim Moran College of Entrepreneurship hosted the 26th Experiential Classroom, drawing entrepreneurship educators and leaders from six countries, 21 U.S. states and Puerto Rico to Tallahassee for professional development.
- The immersive program provides hands-on training, classroom demonstrations and experiential learning techniques that participants can immediately apply in entrepreneurship courses, programs and community initiatives.
- Through international partnerships and faculty-led training initiatives in countries such as Armenia and India, FSU is helping universities and educators strengthen entrepreneurship education and build innovation ecosystems around the globe.
Florida State University welcomed entrepreneurship educators and leaders from around the world to Tallahassee last month for the 26th Experiential Classroom, an intensive professional development program designed to strengthen entrepreneurship education.
Hosted by FSU’s Jim Moran College of Entrepreneurship, this year’s program took place Sept. 17-19 and brought together participants from six countries, 21 U.S. states and Puerto Rico, representing 58 institutions and organizations. International participants came to Tallahassee from Canada, Ecuador, the Dominican Republic, Armenia and India.
The Experiential Classroom is housed at FSU and offered in partnership with the University of Notre Dame, the University of Tampa and the University of Florida. It was founded in 1999 by Michael Morris, a faculty member of the McKenna Center for Human Development and Global Business in the Keough School of Global Affairs at the University of Notre Dame.
The program has become a leading professional development experience for faculty, doctoral students, program directors and others seeking to strengthen how they teach entrepreneurship.
“The reach of this year’s Experiential Classroom speaks to the global leadership role Florida State’s Jim Moran College plays in entrepreneurship education,” said Michael Brady, interim dean of the Jim Moran College of Entrepreneurship. “We want FSU to be a destination not only for students who want to study entrepreneurship, but also for educators from around the world who want to become better at teaching it.”
While most participants came from colleges and universities, the cohort also included representatives from a high school and school district, as well as and community organizations such as the Chicago Urban League, mHUB and the Chicago Community Trust.
Unlike a traditional academic conference, the Experiential Classroom operates as an immersive teaching clinic. Participants learn alongside experienced entrepreneurship educators through classroom demonstrations, interactive sessions and hands-on exercises they can adapt to their own classrooms and entrepreneurship programs.
“The Experiential Classroom is about learning how to teach entrepreneurship by experiencing great entrepreneurship education,” said Susana Santos, Jim Moran Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship and co-director of the program. “Bringing together educators with different disciplinary, institutional and cultural perspectives creates an incredible learning environment. Participants leave with practical approaches they can immediately put to work and a global network of colleagues to rely on long after the clinic ends.”
The Experiential Classroom is part of FSU’s broader work to strengthen entrepreneurship education in the United States and abroad.
In 2025, Santos and Eric Liguori, Jim Moran Professor and associate dean for research and external relations in the college, traveled to Armenia with Vilma Fuentes, a visiting associate in research at FSU’s Learning Systems Institute, to train more than 30 faculty and administrators at the Armenian State University of Economics (ASUE) on contemporary approaches to entrepreneurship education.
The training was part of a U.S. Department of State-funded partnership designed to strengthen STEM and social entrepreneurship education and educational ties between the United States and Armenia. Liguori also regularly leads entrepreneurship educator development programs at universities across the United States, extending FSU’s expertise in experiential entrepreneurship education to faculty and institutions beyond the university’s campuses.
FSU’s work to advance entrepreneurship education internationally is also expanding through a strategic partnership with Universal AI University in Mumbai, India. Through the partnership, FSU faculty are working with their counterparts in India to help integrate entrepreneurship education into the university’s curriculum, bringing together FSU’s expertise in entrepreneurship education with Universal AI University’s focus on artificial intelligence and emerging technology.
FSU’s role as a hub for entrepreneurship education will be on display again Oct. 15-17, when the Jim Moran College of Entrepreneurship hosts the 2026 Global Consortium of Entrepreneurship Centers Annual Conference, bringing hundreds of university entrepreneurship leaders, educators and ecosystem builders from around the world to Tallahassee.
For more information about conference registration and sponsorship opportunities, visit the conference’s webpage. To learn more about the Jim Moran College of Entrepreneurship, visit jimmorancollege.fsu.edu.
To learn more about FSU’s global footprint, visit global.fsu.edu.