A National Fellowship Project Advancing Curriculum Equity at HBCUs
The Fellowship
Project
The Hidden Curriculum: Teaching the “Business Behind the Business” in Entrepreneurship Education
Entrepreneurship education has made great strides in creativity, innovation, and startup ideation. But there’s a persistent and critical gap—one that impacts long-term success, especially for underrepresented students at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). That gap is the "hidden curriculum"—the operational, financial, and structural knowledge that entrepreneurs need to sustain and scale a business.
This fellowship project, The Hidden Curriculum: Teaching the Business Behind the Business, is an opportunity to help close that gap. This project will help to shape a national research effort focused on identifying what foundational business skills are missing from entrepreneurship education.
Through a nationwide audit of HBCU business and entrepreneurship programs, this study will focus on four key groups:
-
Group 1: Deans, program directors, and faculty
-
Group 2: Entrepreneurs who graduated from HBCUs
-
Group 3: Current students in entrepreneurship or business tracks
-
Group 4: Entrepreneurs who did not attend HBCUs
This research will help to expose where essential topics like financial planning, legal structures, scaling, supply chain, succession planning, systems thinking, and more are being under-taught—or not taught at all. The result? Actionable curriculum recommendations and program designs that can be used to strengthen student outcomes and close equity gaps in business readiness.
Led by Dr. Dionne L. Boyd—a global educator, entrepreneur, and curriculum developer with teaching and consulting experience across the U.S., Germany, and Italy—this project is not just research. It’s a roadmap for change.
Let’s ensure students don’t just start businesses; they’re equipped to build sustainable ones.
The Money Chick HBCU Tour
"The Business Behind the Brand"
This tour perfectly aligns with the fellowship research because it creates an energizing opportunity to collect research and data first hand from the focus participants. It also empowers and encourages HBCU students, alumni, and faculty to build sustainable, scalable businesses that go beyond launch to long-term growth and generational wealth. The Money Chick HBCU Tour is more than an event—it’s a movement to close equity gaps and create lasting change. We are actively seeking sponsors for this tour which will cover 20 plus HBCUs throughout the U.S. If you are interested in sponsorship, workshops, adding your HBCU to the tour or supporting this endeavor in any way, please complete the contact information below and we will send you additional information to do so.