Living, Writing and Teaching Entrepreneurship: Bessie House-Soremekun, President and Founder, International Black Business Museum
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We will also be broadcasting this roundtable and future roundtables to LinkedIn Live on CWRU Veale Institute for Entrepreneurship's LinkedIn page on November 10.
Speakers
Bessie House-Soremekun
Dr. Bessie House-Soremekun is a native of Lanett, Alabama. She is an internationally recognized scholar, professor, and award-winning author. She is also an administrator, inventor, and entrepreneur. She is the President and Founder of the International Black Business Museum (www.theibbm.com), which is the first and only museum in the world whose mission is to preserve the history and honor the contributions of Black entrepreneurs and inventors in the United States and other countries of the world.
She received her Ph.D. and M.A. Degrees in International Studies at what is now the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver. She received her B.A. Degree in English from Huntingdon College, where she graduated Magna Cum Laude. She has been a Full Professor of Political Science and Africana Studies for many years and has held faculty appointments at several major institutions of higher learning. She has held a number of administrative appointments through the years, such as serving as the Associate Dean in the College of Liberal Arts and the Interim Chair of the Department of Political Science, as the Director of Africana Studies, as a Faculty Fellow in the office of the Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs, and as the Director of Affirmative Action.
She is an institution builder who has created and exercised oversight of five entrepreneurial centers, which include the National Center for Entrepreneurship, Inc., the Center for the Study and Development of Minority Businesses at Kent State University, the Entrepreneurial Academy of the Cleveland Empowerment Zone, the Entrepreneurial Academy of Youngstown, Ohio, a spin off center, and the Center for Global Entrepreneurship and Sustainable Development at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. Collectively, these centers produced award-winning research and provided business training classes using a business training module that she created to more than 400 individuals. Through the work of these centers, numerous businesses were established and/or expanded in Northeast, Ohio.
She is the author/editor of 8 books, which include, Class Development and Gender Inequality in Kenya: 1963-1990; African Market Women and Economic Power: The Role of Women in African Economic Development; Globalization and Sustainable Development in Africa; Gender, Sexuality and Mothering in Africa; Confronting the Odds: African American Entrepreneurship in Cleveland, Ohio, 1st and 2nd Editions; Yoruba Creativity: Cultural Practices of the Modern World; and African American
Entrepreneurship: Philanthropic Giving, Self-Help, and the Struggle for Economic
Empowerment, which is under contract with Indiana University Press. She has also published many journal articles and book chapters.
Through the years, she has written and received more than 24 grant awards totaling almost $1.5 million dollars from various funding organizations, including the Shell Foundation, the Cleveland Foundation, the Ohio Board of Regents, the Ohio Urban University Program, Kent State University, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, Indiana University at Bloomington, and others. She has also received more than 50 additional accolades and awards for teaching, research, service, community and civic engagement, and organization of international conferences. Some of these awards include, among others, the Special Recognition Award from the Executive Director of the African Studies Association on behalf of the Board of Directors, the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Drum Major Lifetime Achievement Award from the Mothers on A Mission, the President’s Lifetime Achievement Award from the Nigerian Community of Greater Cleveland, the External Achievement Recognition Award from the Chancellor at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, the Distinguished Scholar Award for Outstanding Scholarship, Teaching, and Service in Africana Studies from Tennessee State University, the Global African American Activist Ambassador Award from the African American Restoration Movement of Indianapolis, the Oni Award from the International Black Women’s Congress, a gold key to the city of Hopkinsville, Kentucky on behalf of the Mayor, and others.
For her meritorious work, she has been featured on the covers of Northern Ohio Live Magazine and The City Newspaper of Cleveland, Ohio. Her research has appeared in Crain’s Business Newspaper, The Cleveland Plain Dealer, The Akron Beacon Journal, The Buckeye News, and other venues. She has appeared on the Kaleidoscope Television Show, The Work and Money Television Show, on affiliate television stations of ABC and NBC News Stations, as well as other television shows, radio programs, and National Public Radio (NPR). She was the host of her own television show on cable television in Cleveland called, “Let’s Talk Business,” and the host of her own internet radio show called The Dr. Bessie House Show.”
Hosted By
Co-hosted with: CWRU LaunchNet, Sears think[box], Entrepreneurship Club
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