The Ronald D. Schmeichel Building is taking shape at Western University to uplift future entrepreneurs and innovators
Located in the heart of Western University campus, the Ronald D. Schmeichel Building for Entrepreneurship and Innovation provides a collision space for aspiring founders from all disciplines and walks of life
For almost three decades, the Morrissette Institute for Entrepreneurship at Western University has been nurturing a culture of entrepreneurship, powered by the university’s Ivey Business School. A dynamic force uniting entrepreneurially-minded students across all fields of study, the institute is preparing to move into a new home this summer — the Ronald D. Schmeichel Building for Entrepreneurship and Innovation — nearing completion on the main campus.
Launched with a $10 million gift by Canadian entrepreneur and financier Ronald D. Schmeichel, the 100,000-sq.-ft. building is located at the heart of the campus and will provide space for students in all faculties who have a passion to innovate, invent and potentially create a new venture. Western’s first net zero building, the new structure will house two state-of-the art classrooms, meeting rooms and two maker spaces equipped with 3D printers, metalworking, machinery and woodworking tools.
“We’ve been turning people away from our increasingly popular programming because we just don’t have a big enough space,” says Eric Morse, executive director of Morrissette Entrepreneurship. “This building will provide a home for them and our programs, allowing us to further the critical mass allowing like-minded people across Western to congregate, build and share ideas and create value through innovation and commercialization.”
When completed, the new space will be one of the few buildings dedicated to entrepreneurship anywhere in the world. That space will become an avenue to deliver the depth and breadth of programming built by Morrissette Entrepreneurship across the last 20 years. The building will also facilitate the creation of innovative new programming to reach an even greater number of members of the university community.
Morse notes that the power behind the Morrissette Entrepreneurship brand is the belief that the spirit of entrepreneurship can be found in students across every faculty, embodied in the donations of Pierre L. Morrissette, a 1972 MBA graduate who credits his success as an entrepreneur
to his education at Ivey. That message resonates with Ronald Schmeichel, who graduated from Western’s JD (Juris Doctor) program in 1995.
“I was always business-minded and came from a modest family where the focus was on work ethic,” he says. “One of the reasons I chose Western for law was that it just seemed to be forward-thinking, not trapped in the past. We were encouraged to follow an interdisciplinary approach and I took as many courses at Ivey as I could. I loved that I could go to Ivey and bring back case studies to my law classes.”
Following graduation, Schmeichel articled in a law firm for a short time before starting his first business as a financial entrepreneur in a career that has already spanned 30 years.
Presented with the opportunity to help finance an entrepreneurial centre at Western, he was quick to embrace the concept of a building that would be the centrepiece of the university and a home for an entrepreneurship program that plays off the strong global brand of the Ivey Business School.
“It reaches out to all the faculties from law and engineering to journalism and medicine,” he says. “They can share ideas, debate, take classes, access senior businesspeople and build prototypes. I believe this beautiful modern building echoes Marshall Mcluhan’s famous statement that ‘the medium is the message.’ The building evokes a sense of forward thinking, creativity and innovation and the promise that Canadian entrepreneurs can do great things.”
Considering the possibility of donating money to the program over several years or all at once, Schmeichel says he was inspired by a desire to get behind the project and see it built as soon as possible. It was the assurance of Western president Alan Shepard and Sharon Hodgson, dean of the Ivey Business School, that sealed the deal.
“They promoted a vision that this would not just be an outpost or an afterthought,” he says. “I saw an alignment of the top faculty and leadership at Western saying ‘this is our future.’ When parents drop their kids off in first year, and when students walk across the campus to their faculties, they’ll be intrigued about what’s going on inside this beautiful building.”
Morse notes that the potential of the new space will increase opportunities for entrepreneurship exponentially, from the new courses being offered by Morrissette Entrepreneurship this fall, to meeting places for clubs and presentations, to the simple act of placing like-minded people in the same space and accelerating their journey into launching their own businesses.
“We may now be able to reach five or 10 times the number of students we have traditionally reached each year,” he says. “Ron really embraced the vision of extending entrepreneurship education to all students at the university, and making Western the premiere destination for students in any discipline who believe they possess the spark of an entrepreneurial spirit.”
For more information on the Morrissette Institute for Entrepreneurship, please visit entrepreneurship. uwo.ca. For updates on the Ronald D. Schmeichel Building for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, visit uwo.ca/fm/projects/capital_projects/entrepreneurship_innovation.html