Before she began teaching, Brown-Droese served as Interim Executive Director of Centro Latino de Chelsea, and Compliance Manager for East Boston Neighborhood Health Center. After earning her MBA from Simmons, she was a small business instructor and Director of the Neighborhood Business Institute, where she educated immigrants and women of color in business principles.
Now a lecturer in the School of Management at Simmons, Brown-Droese’s classes are applicable to any program of study at Simmons. The ultimate goal of the two undergraduate-level courses she teaches, “Negotiations” (BUS 320) and “Entrepreneurship Mindset” (BUS 137), is for students to leave with an individual portfolio based on the class. In each, students undertake a semester-long project that demonstrates how they will use the skills presented in real-world situations, such as negotiating their first salary or planning a business venture.
Experiential Learning with Commonwealth Kitchen
In the spring semester, Brown-Droese teaches “Creativity, Innovation and Entrepreneurship” (MSMG 440), a course designed for nutrition students getting their Master of Science in Nutrition and Health Promotion.
“We do an experiential piece [for this course],” says Brown-Droese, who approached businesses through Commonwealth Kitchen, a nonprofit organization that offers resources to BIPOC and women-owned food-based businesses. She offered the opportunity to work with master’s-level nutrition students to determine where their potential customers are, how to reach them, and value propositions. The class offers a unique opportunity to support both students and local entrepreneurs.
“The students worked in groups, each group focused on drafting a business model,” says Brown-Droese. “They researched types of customers, brick and mortar versus online shops.”
Though not versed in the specifics that Nutrition students will need to start their own practice, Brown-Droese offers a business mindset and useful strategies. Her own background in educating business owners offers useful insight.
“I’ve seen the idea of writing a business plan stop so many people from starting a business,” says Brown-Droese. “They think it needs to be a 200-page document in order to get investors or a loan. While a business plan is still a good foundation, you don’t need one to start a business in Massachusetts.”
In addition to drafting a plan, the students advised the business owners on the steps to set up an LLC in order to create a separate entity for the business and safeguard their personal finances. “A lot of reasons women and minority-owned businesses fail is because they don’t integrate the legal structure into their plan,” says Brown-Droese. “It’s not a good idea to be a sole proprietor of a food-based business — we live in a litigious society, especially when it comes to food.”
Students have a chance to create a business model as a group before their final project, where they replicate that effort for their own portfolio. “Nutrition students are great. A lot of them already want to have their own practice, someday. They are coming in with that idea and figure out what they want to focus on, what part of nutrition. These students have amazing ideas, and I get very excited about them!”
While the majority of her students this spring were studying nutrition, the course is open to all undergraduates. In fact, a diverse array of studies is a boon for class discussions. “It makes the classes more dynamic,” says Brown-Droese.
“With the current economy, having the skills to start your own business is a good thing. I would love to work with majors in every department on an entrepreneurship course. For students in the Schools of Nursing and Social Work, having that business training would be really helpful. I can’t think of one department that can’t use entrepreneurship. It’s a different way of looking at what you have to offer, what your perspective can offer to help people, and how you can reach your potential client base,” she says.
Commonwealth Kitchen is interested in partnering with the class again.