Community Service

Prison Entrepreneurship Program

The Prison Entrepreneurship Program (PEP) was designed “to stimulate positive life transformation for executives and inmates, uniting them through entrepreneurial passion, education and mentoring.” Before they are released, inmates are given the opportunity to take their existing inclination for self-employment and entrepreneurial skills and use them to develop lawful and genuine business opportunities. PEP is a non-profit faith-based organization that constructively redirects inmates’ talents by equipping them with value-based entrepreneurial training, thereby enabling them to productively re-enter society.

Currently MBA students from Harvard, Stanford, Texas A&M and other major universities work with the program. Business Honors students are the first group of undergraduates to get involved with PEP.

How can Business Honors students get involved in PEP?

Business Honors juniors and seniors have the opportunity to serve as PEP advisors, mentoring an inmate in the creation of his business plan. PEP advisors assist their PEP participant by spending an hour a week conducting market research and reviewing the inmate’s business documents and classroom assignments. Students have said that being an advisor was one of their most rewarding college experiences.

Business Honors students also have the opportunity to attend PEP events at the Cleveland Correctional Facility in Cleveland, TX.  A "selling night," etiquette dinner and mock interviews are just a few of the events our students have participated in with the prison students.

To learn more about PEP and to view informative news clips, visit their website or read about one of our students' experiences in BusinessWeek.

Advancement Via Individual Determination

Advanced Via Individual Determination (AVID) is a college-readiness program designed to increase the number of students who enroll in four-year colleges in the U.S. Business Honors students meet with 8th graders at both middle schools in College Station. In addition to running a lively stock trading competition for the participants, Business Honors students present some basic financial decision-making classes. The session ends with a field trip to Mays Business School for a pizza lunch and visit to the Reliant Trading Center.

The program is presented each fall and details will be sent to all Business Honors students in one of the weekly update e-mails.