The following are UNL Divisions and Projects that seek to partner with or have resources for Nebraska Communities. See where these groups are impacting Nebraska in our Engagement and Outreach Map. For edits or suggestions, please contact Jentry Barrett at jbarrett3@unl.edu.
Accounting Workshop for Middle and High School Students
College of Business
Warren Buffett, class of 1951, once said, “accounting is the language of business.” This workshop gives students a holistic understanding of accounting significance in life and business and enables them to think like a CEO. Utilizing interactive activities, career insights and practical demonstrations, students get a taste of why the famous Nebraskan investor and business leader is correct.
Actuarial Science Workshop for Middle and High School Students
College of Business
An actuary manages risk for insurance companies, hospitals, banks and more. Students who enjoy mathematics, statistics and collaboration often find great satisfaction in this line of work. In this workshop, students assess the risk of automobile insurance policies through a hands-on activity.
Better Process Control School Digital Badge
Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources
The Better Process Control School provides training to processors of shelf-stable, low-acid and acidified foods to help assure their safety. It satisfies requirements for supervisors operating under FDA regulations.
Business and Law Workshop for Middle and High School Students
College of Business
One of the fastest-growing majors in the College of Business is business and law. Business employers often need professionals who can identify programs and develop solutions that make both financial and legal sense. In this workshop, students get a firsthand look at how skills developed through this major apply to their lives and why there is such demand within this field.
Business Leadership and Management Modules
College of Business
Make your organization increasingly competitive and profitable by partnering with us to design a program specifically targeted to your company’s strategies and objectives. Through collaborative partnership, we can create high-impact curriculum for your company’s talent to gain critical knowledge and expertise to help drive critical change in your organization.
Center for Entrepreneurship
College of Business
The Nebraska Center for Entrepreneurship can help small businesses connect with resources from UNL. The Center offers mentorships, workshops, competition and funding opportunities to help businesses grow.
Clifton Builders Program
College of Business
The Clifton Builders Program is designed to identify and develop students with high leadership and entrepreneurial potential. These students aspire to change the world by building new businesses, teams, or communities through leadership and involvement. Builders work with local businesses and organizational leadership to create actionable goals to improve workplace culture. As the only program of its kind, Clifton Builders develop a distinctive skill set that employers are looking for, and investors will respect.
CliftonStrengths Workshop for Middle and High School Students
College of Business
In this workshop, students can recognize their individual talents and potential, develop an understanding as to why they make certain choices, find fulfillment in specific tasks and learn more about how they influence others.
Community and Regional Planning
Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources
The Community and Regional Planning program engages student teams in community service projects aligned with the university’s land grant missions. These projects encompass various areas, including land use planning, economic and housing planning, as well as environmental and hazard mitigation planning. Through these initiatives, tangible benefits can be directly delivered to communities across Nebraska.
Cottage Food Law Training
Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources
Online Cottage Food Law training course in English or Spanish from Nebraska Extension to prepare you to sell goods already authorized for sale at farmers' markets directly to consumers from the producer's home, fairs, festivals, other public events, or online, all within the state of Nebraska.
Department of Textiles, Merchandizing, & Fashion Design Entrepreneurship
College of Education and Human Sciences
The Department of Textiles, Merchandising & Fashion Design (TMFD) actively engages with constituents and colleagues in Nebraska, across the nation and overseas, and is fully connected to the pulse of the textiles and apparel industries and professions. TMFD is committed to assisting apparel and textile-based entrepreneurs. The department has expertise to share with entrepreneurs in all phases of soft goods-based ventures, such as: product design, customer identification, business research, product validation, manufacturing and distribution.
Drone Pilot Training Digital Badge
Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources
This 2-day comprehensive course will prepare you for the FAA Aeronautical Knowledge Test. Also known as the Part 107 exam, this is the required starting point for anyone planning to fly drones commercially. Our expert instruction and interactive learning materials will guide you through the exam’s complexities, ensuring you are fully prepared to take to the skies as a certified commercial drone pilot. This class will also feature hands-on drone flying experience.
eCommunities
Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources
As an asset-based development approach to community development, the eCommunities program helps Nebraska’s rural towns strengthen and expand their economies. Our eCoaches work with local leaders to build more resilient economies that supports long-term prosperity. By creating an entrepreneurial ecosystem, communities foster growth, opportunity, and vitality, setting the stage for a thriving future.
Engler Agribusiness Entrepreneurship Program
Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources
Engler exists to embolden people on the courageous pursuit of their purpose through the art and practice of entrepreneurship. The program equips its student with the skills, mindset and know-how to build and launch a successful enterprise that aligns with their passion and purpose. Students receive assistance in exploring entrepreneurship and then in growing their businesses, should they choose entrepreneurship as their path. Students from across UNL as well as entrepreneurs from the community are welcome.
Entrepreneurial Communities Activation Process
Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources
The Entrepreneurial Communities Activation Process (ECAP) program helps Nebraska communities grow their economy by tapping into their unique culture and past successes. ECAP empowers community members to lead the way in shaping their economic future. Prosperity isn’t instant; it’s a journey, and ECAP helps communities set action-based goals to get where they want to be.
Entrepreneurship Workshop for Middle and High School Students
College of Business
In this workshop, students explore established businesses and identify the problem, solution, target market, competition, financial projects and “the ask.” If the idea of building and organizing a business excites you, entrepreneurship might be an area to consider. We love incorporating that “startup” mindset in classrooms to stimulate a new interest in business.
Fabrication and Construction Team (FACT)
College of Architecture
FACT is a collaborative student design buld studio at UNL that engages design, fabrication, and construction projects with cultural and non-profit clients. FACT’s primary mission is to provide educational opportunities for design students and partners who play a role in this mission. Students are hardworking and creative, but they are not yet professionals. The benefits to the student and the partner organization are mutual.
Food Allergen Fundamentals Digital Badge
Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources
Food allergens remain a critical food safety concern for manufacturers throughout the food industry. Developing and implementing effective allergen control plans requires a robust understanding of foundational food allergen concepts.
Food Processing Center Entrepreneur Program
Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources
Launched in 1989, the National Food Entrepreneur Program has helped thousands of entrepreneurs nationwide realize their dream of starting a food company. As a new or potential food entrepreneur, it is often difficult to find an accurate source of the information necessary to successfully launch a business in the food industry. Ensuring a food product survives and prospers in a highly competitive marketplace requires informed decisions, careful planning, and precise execution. The Food Processing Center can help you through all the steps of creating a food business - and perhaps most important - help you use your time wisely and avoid costly mistakes. From understanding the basics of creating a food business to individualized step-by- step assistance to the marketplace, the National Food Entrepreneur Program is the place to start.
Food Processing Center Resources for the Food Industry
Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources
Resources including applied research and engineering, biomaterials program, food analysis facility, food safety service, labeling and regulatory compliance, microbiology laboratory services, pilot plans, produce development, and the sensory analysis laboratory.
Heartland Regional Food Business Center
Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources
The Heartland Regional Food Business Center is all about creating stronger, more responsive, and more competitive local food systems. Focused on supporting small, mid-sized and diverse food and farm businesses, as well as local and regional food initiatives, the goal is to make local food a simple, everyday choice by strengthening community connections.
Hygienic Design in Food Manufacturing Digital Badge
Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources
The Hygienic Design in Food Manufacturing badge program will be an eight-week training delivered via six self-paced modules, including a virtual synchronous recitation. This training is focused on enhancing participants’ understanding of the role hygienic design plays in ensuring food safety, as well as ensuring that participants understand how to effectively apply SSOPs and design standards in their workplaces.
InFORM: Principles of Microbial Food Safety and Quality Digital Badge
Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources
InFORM, which stands for Introduction to Food Operations, Regulations, and Management, is a series of self-paced, online trainings aimed at individuals with or seeking careers in the food industry. Current trainings cover topics such as the fundamentals of food microbiology, identification of food safety hazards, and concepts in processing for safety and quality.
Jacht Agency for Business
College of Journalism and Mass Communications
UNL runs a competitive student-run advertising and public relations agency open to all majors. This program provides upper-level students with professional development opportunities to work with real-life clients on integrated media communications campaigns.
Latino Small Business Program
Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources
The Latino Small Business Program empowers immigrant entrepreneurs in Nebraska to build their own businesses. Led by Sandra Barrera, Rural Prosperity Nebraska’s statewide Latino engagement coordinator and a Colombian immigrant herself, the program offers expert guidance in Spanish. From education to hands-on advice and valuable connections, Sandra helps entrepreneurs at every step of their business journey, making their dreams a reality.
Marketing 411 Course
College of Business
The Marketing Capstone class works with businesses, start-ups, and nonprofits as clients to develop Marketing Plans for these clients. The students work as teams of 5 to 6 students with the client throughout a 15-week spring semester or a 5-week summer session to develop a marketing plan that can address real short term or long-term needs or opportunities for each client. Contact Rob Simon, rsimon2@unl.edu
Micropipette Mastery Digital Badge
Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources
Micropipettes are used daily in almost all professional laboratory environments for liquid handling and require practice to repeatedly perform accurate and precise sample dilutions and additions of standard mixtures. This course will teach you how to use a micropipette correctly, consistently, and accurately for liquid handling.
Nebraska Business Development Center
College of Business
Nebraska Business Development Center (NBDC) is a university-based business consulting program that provides professional level consulting assistance to small businesses in Nebraska. NBDC’s Southeast Nebraska location is housed in the Nebraska Center for Entrepreneurship (Hawks Hall 315). NBDC Consultants can help you: Develop/refine a business plan, define business goals, refine a target market, Complete a cash flow analysis & financial projections.
Nebraska Cooperative Development Center
Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources
The Nebraska Cooperative Development Center is Nebraska's source for cooperative-based business development. We believe that the cooperative business model has the power to increase the quality of life and economic vitality of rural Nebraska. Since 1999, NCDC has provided education, training and technical assistance to groups interested in working together to meet their needs and reach their goals.
Nebraska Council on Economic Education
College of Business
Throughout five centers for economic education, the council provides resources for professional development, graduate education, workshops, classroom activities, and academic competitions for teachers and students in K-12 and post-secondary institutions. Contact us if you need additional information, would like to sponsor an event, or would like to help support the council and our mission.
Nebraska Industrial Training and Assessment Center (NIAC)
College of Engineering
NIAC Brings long lasting value to the region by offering innovative, sustainable, and economically beneficial recommendations to small and medium sized manufacturers, as well as educating the next generation of engineers to be mindful of energy efficiency and waste prevention as they enter tomorrow’s workforce.
Nebraska Innovation Campus
At full build-out, NIC will be a 2.2-million-square-foot campus with uniquely designed buildings and amenities that encourage people to create and transform ideas into global innovation. NIC connects the talents of experts, companies, and the university to create a unique culture of innovation. In addition, NIC is a campus that facilitates new and in-depth partnerships between UNL and private-sector businesses. The main advantage of having a business presence at NIC is the opportunity to immerse the business team into a collaborative and innovative culture filled with creative energy. In addition, university talent (faculty and students) and private-sector talent are brought together, and connections are facilitated to enhance the opportunity to transform ideas into innovation that impacts the world.
Nebraska Innovation Studio
Nebraska Innovation Studio (NIS) is a community-oriented makerspace that serves as a hub for innovators, artists and entrepreneurs. Students can get a membership at a discounted rate to Nebraska Innovation Studio, one of the top makerspaces in the nation. The 16,000 square-foot facility equipped with a full metal shop, wood shop, rapid prototyping room, art studio, ceramics and textile equipment, screen printing station, and more.
Nebraska Manufacturing Extension Partnership
Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources
Nebraska MEP’s approach is to work with each client individually, understand their needs, and tailor a plan to meet specific goals and objectives. The end goal is to increase the profitability and competitiveness of manufacturers through a concerted effort to develop high caliber workers, foster product innovation, cultivate new customers and enter new markets.
Northeast Nebraska Agriculture and Natural Resources Education Compact
Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources
The Northeast Nebraska Agriculture and Natural Resources Education Compact is the first of its kind in Nebraska. The compact combines the strengths of multiple institutions in the region to meet the education needs of youth and lifelong learners and contribute to workforce and talent development to support economic growth strategies in agriculture and natural resources.
Public Relations Strategy
College of Journalism and Mass Communications
UNL College of Journalism and Mass Communications teaches a public relations strategy class and partners with community-based clients, preferably groups looking for short-term (week-long) outreach or publicity initiatives. Students produce the initiative and community members are asked to work with students to help scope the project. Contact Betsy Emmons; eemmons3@unl.ed
Recipe to Reality Seminar Digital Badge
Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources
Recipe to Reality provides a general overview of the many issues involved in developing a food manufacturing business. Seminar topics address important questions that every entrepreneur should consider. The seminar is available In Person or also as an On Demand format.
School of Computing: Senior Design Project Sponsorship
College of Engineering
The University of Nebraska School of Computing’s Senior Design runs a capstone program for junior and senior students majoring in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, and Software Engineering. This program provides students with real-life experience and prepares them for an industry career.
SourceLink
Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources
SourceLink® Nebraska connects Nebraskans with programs and services for entrepreneurs, businesses, communities, and economic developers.
Supply Chain Workshop for Middle and High School Students
College of Business
In this workshop, students explore the process of transferring products from company to customer. This is the management process that pushes products and services from raw materials to the market. This area requires an optimization of efficiency and effectiveness.
Tax Institute
College of Business
The Tax Institute is designed for tax preparers, enrolled agents, accountants/CPAs, certified financial planners, attorneys, banking, insurance professionals and real estate professionals. Watch how we work for you.
Timber Production and Manufacturing Virtual Directory
Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources
A directory of sawmills, processors, contractors, and makers that work with timber.
Universal Robots CORE Training Digital Badge
Universal Robots’ CORE Certification curriculum offers a comprehensive three-day program giving participants the skills they need to excel in robot operations. Covering programming, operating, troubleshooting, optimizing and more, this hands-on course equips individuals with the skills they need to navigate the world of collaborative and industrial robotics.
Volunteer Income Tax Assistance Program
College of Law
The Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program, provided by our College of Law, provides income tax preparation assistance to individuals at lower income levels. Assessments include the number of returns processed, dollar amount of refunds, and earned income tax credit returned to low-income families, and according to those criteria the VITA program shows increased results annually. However, analysis of customer demographics and documentation of unmet demand showed that local Hispanic and Latino identified communities were underrepresented among clients who received services. By partnering with a Spanish translation service-learning course project, we greatly expanded VITA services to Spanish speakers in the community. Now we are expanding that program to other languages common in the region.
Weibling Entrepreneurship Clinic
College of Law
Under the supervision of the faculty instructor, students in the Weibling Entrepreneurship Clinic handle a variety of early-stage legal matters for start-up businesses throughout the state, including entity formation, contract drafting and review, intellectual property protection, regulatory, compliance and other transactional legal matters.
Yeutter Institute of International Trade and Finance
Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources
At the Clayton Yeutter Institute of International Trade and Finance, we connect academic disciplines related to law, policy, business and agriculture to prepare students for leadership roles in international trade and finance, support interdisciplinary research and increase public understanding of these issues. Named for the renowned trade expert Clayton Yeutter—a Nebraska alumnus and former U.S. Trade Representative and Agriculture Secretary—the Yeutter Institute is a community focused on understanding and adapting to our global world.