The Catholic University of America’s Busch School of Business in Washington is teaching a new form of entrepreneurship in high school classrooms. CEDE, the Catholic Entrepreneurship and Design Experience, educates high schoolers on “the day to day in the entrepreneurship that is in everyone’s life,” according to Jon Bachura, CEDE director.
Lucas Burgis, program director at the Ciocca Center for Principled Entrepreneurship at Catholic U., realized that incoming freshmen believed “entrepreneurship” only meant creating a successful business. In response, he founded CEDE in 2018 to expand the university’s entrepreneurship education. Since then, 30 high schools across the country have participated in the program.
Entrepreneurship doesn’t just mean starting a business, Bachura said. For high schoolers, true entrepreneurship should “be aligned with their vocation, the common good, their faith (and) the dignity of other human beings.”
CEDE’s curriculum includes 12 modules, each with a project. The modules and projects help students practice entrepreneurial skills for different careers and vocations. Educators facilitating the curriculum are trained and certified at Catholic U. at a teacher summit each June. Students and their parents also have the option to apply CEDE as a dual enrollment and concurrent credit.
Sara Wheeler, a sophomore at the University of Notre Dame, completed the program her senior year of high school in 2022. “CEDE encouraged me to carefully reflect on who I am as a person — like what beliefs and values are most important to me, what motivates me, and how my past experiences have shaped my character,” she said. “I am fortunate to have begun such intentional vocational discernment while in high school.”
CEDE also hosts one-day workshops at Catholic U. that offer simulations and sessions on modeling ideation, human-centered design, growth mindset and leadership.
Wheeler said she practices the skills she learned from CEDE constantly. “While I am not yet certain which precise career I want to pursue, CEDE solidified for me that I would like my career to create value for others and be mission-driven. I study economics and theology, and CEDE definitely in part inspired my hope to work along the intersection of economics and Catholic social teaching,” she said.
“We want our children to know that they are actively living their vocation now,” Bachura said. “It’s not something that’s waiting for them in the future; it is something that they’re actually doing right now. And so with that mentality, how can the idea of being an entrepreneur — serving the needs of others — actually enhance and amplify this idea?”
