7 Profs You Will Find in College!

As I prepare to teach at GMU’s School of Management this fall, I wonder how my students will view me.

From Collegehumor.com (h/t Newmark’sDoor) — The 7 Professors You’ll Have in College. A snippet about the “Went to Woodstock” type:

You’ll know it’s him when you walk into class and say “Good morning, Professor Richmond,” and he shoots back, “Call me Larry.” When discussing pop culture he begins every sentence with “If Hendrix were alive,” and he swears he won’t state his political opinions, but he will say that he was disappointed when you merely voted for Barack Obama and didn’t set your parents’ house on fire as a tribute. He pronounces “Darfur” with an “African” accent and is repulsed by the current lack of student activism. You’re repulsed by the fact that he is bald on top, but still insists on harnessing his last few strands of hair into a ponytail. As far as he is concerned, there is no such thing as an arrow or a gun or a cylinder, they are all penises, and the Grand Canyon is just a massive vagina. Whether or not this symbolism was the author’s original intent is irrelevent; Larry won’t let the opressive views of “fact” take his class captive. If Hendrix were alive, he probably wouldn’t like Larry.

UK Prof Brings Non-Sticky Gum

Interesting article from the IHT, highlighting difference between tech spinoffs in the US and the UK. The lead is about a Prof who is trying to create non-sticky chewing gum (to benefit cities and others that must continually remove gum from sidewalks — easier than caning people like they do in Singapore).

The inspiration for Cosgrove’s non-stick chewing gum came on a trip to academic conferences in the United States – not in a conference hall, but on American sidewalks, where he noticed wads of hardened chewing gum. “You think perhaps it’s pigeon poo,” he recalled.

He added, “I came home, and as things go round, I tried to make a polymer, to get as low an adhesive quality as possible.”

Eventually, his team came up with a formulation of polymers that would not stick. To determine whether it came off sidewalks and other surfaces, they pitted it against standard chewing gums on main streets across western England. While the other gums stuck, Cosgrove’s rinsed off with rainwater – “though some surfaces are better than others,” he said, calling leather a “terrible” magnet.

Despite those promising results, Cosgrove still had no interest in starting a business. Roger Pettman, an entrepreneur with a doctorate degree in organic chemistry, had to coax him.

Pettman had taken ChiRex, a pharmaceutical start-up, to an initial public offering on the Nasdaq before it was acquired in 2000 by the French chemical maker Rhodia.

When Bristol University held an enterprise competition in the summer of 2005 to showcase research at the school, Cosgrove’s chewing gum won. Having raised seed money from the university to get started, he raised $1.5 million in a first round of fund-raising from several venture capital funds. Last February, a group of venture capital funds led by Swarraton Partners pumped another $4 million into Revolymer.

This is a really interesting piece and worth the read, however, it again confirms my suspicion that when people think of entrepreneurship and new venture development on the campus they are only thinking tech and tech transfer.