Bringing an Academic Legacy into the Future
Dan Young has no shortage of ideas. The serial entrepreneur typically has many initiatives in play. Currently, he is the organizer of TEDxWilmington, the chapter director of StartUp Grind Wilmington and founder of Maverick Class, an edutainment company. His calendar is filled with volunteer activities.
More recently, the Delaware native is receiving accolades for his work at Goldey-Beacom College. In 2018, he became the founding director of the school’s Doctor of Business Administration Program. Students from the first cohort graduate in 2021.
Young, who holds advanced degrees in marketing, took an entrepreneurial approach to the curriculum.
“I looked at the full landscape of doctoral business programs to figure out what we could do that no one else was doing,” he explains. He concluded that the program should be built on the premise that students can help solve business problems in the community.
The doctoral students have tackled projects for the Delaware Department of Labor, American Airlines, the office of the New Castle County [Delaware] Executive, Theatre N in Wilmington and The Mill, a coworking space.
Young is also an assistant professor in the program. But it’s not his first foray into academia. He has education in his blood.