Abstract—The University Center for Economic and
Entrepreneurial Development at Southern University in Baton
Rouge, Louisiana, USA, developed a human capital
development program entitled “Creating Neighborhood
Developers’ program” in December 2015. The Center
launched the program in February 2017, March 2018, and
April 2019, in which the Center team members and
collaborators trained individuals who were interested in
acquiring and developing adjudicated properties within their
neighborhood. The unique feature of the program is that it
emphasizes an entrepreneurship aspect of neighborhood
developments and perceives program participants to be
emerging entrepreneurial neighborhood developers. The
program has so far generated 1,910 attendances, 40 jobs,
$6,023,000 in income, 53 properties in development, and the
purchase of 36 houses. In addition, seven indirect projects
were completed and valued at $28,513,200. The program also
produced 97 certified sustainable neighborhood developers for
the first time in the State of Louisiana. This faculty-driven
program presents an important area of engagement,
innovation, and impact where faculty members at a college or
university accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate
Schools of Business, International (AACSB) can serve their
local communities.
Index Terms—EDA university center, entrepreneurship,
human capital, sustainable neighborhood development.
Sung No, Donald Andrews, and Ghirmay Ghebreyesus are with
Southern University and A&M College, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA (email: Sung_no@subr.edu, Donald_andrews@subr.edu,
Ghirmay_Ghebreyesus@subr.edu).
Eric Porter is with ComNet, LLC, Baton Rouge, LA, USA (e-mail:
comnetllc@yahoo.com).
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Cite: Sung No, Donald Andrews, Ghirmay Ghebreyesus, and Eric Porter, "Creating Sustainable Neighborhood Developers' Program," International Journal of Trade, Economics and Finance vol.11, no.2, pp. 19-23, 2020.
Copyright © 2020 by the authors. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited (CC BY 4.0).