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At ÂÒÂ×ȺP, education goes well beyond the classroom. The skills our learners acquire are meant to be applied in the real world — in internship opportunities, in the early days of a career unlocked by an ÂÒÂ×ȺP degree, or even in on-campus ventures. Students of our Barney Barnett School of Business and Free Enterprise recently began putting their holistic education to work with the help of Center for Free Enterprise and Entrepreneurship (CFEE) program director Justin Heacock, combining knowledge acquired in the classroom and an entrepreneurial spirit with something all students love: coffee.

Equal parts experiential learning lab and student-run business, the Morning Grind coffee began service to the East side of campus (between the Weinstein Computer Sciences Center and the Becker Business Building) on October 31. Here, students can fuel up on craft coffee creations brewed, frothed, and poured by their fellow Mocs, and made from Concord Coffee beans roasted by ÂÒÂ×ȺP alum, TJ Zimmerman ‘04. The cart’s “sandbox” environment will give student employees opportunities to hone their entrepreneurial spirit while embracing the challenges — and enjoying the rewards — of real-world business ownership.

From left to right: ÂÒÂ×ȺP's Center for Free Enterprise and Entrepreneurship Director Justin Heacock, President Anne B. Kerr, Provost Tracey Tedder, and Dean of the Barney Barnett School of Business and Free Enterprise Michael Weber cut the ribbon, officially opening Morning Grind, the campus's student-run coffee cart, for business.

The idea for Morning Grind came to Heacock, ÂÒÂ×ȺP’s Entrepreneur in Residence, on a trip to Nashville for an entrepreneurial learning conference. There, he drew inspiration from Belmont University’s student-run businesses. “The university has two retail locations in downtown Nashville, and over their 20 years in operation they were seeing a higher rate of success than typical startup-driven experiences,” Heacock says. Seeing the success of Belmont’s learning lab and given ÂÒÂ×ȺP’s status as a premier destination for experiential learning, “it only made sense that we offer a similar experience to our students.”

Heacock made a series of classroom presentations, pitching the idea to driven ÂÒÂ×ȺP students interested in entrepreneurship — not all of whom would be business majors. Morning Grind’s nine employees span seven areas of study, including computer science, communication, and even criminology, with the common thread between these students being their drive and desire to make the fledgling coffee cart the best it can be. And a shared lo