Where Possibility Meets Purpose

This article was contributed by Amber Dempsey '13 in the fall 2026 issue of The Magazine of Gordon College. 

Soaking in the sweeping view of the San Francisco Bay from the Marin Headlands, Miriam Belli ’28 turned to Dr. Sheryl Sleeva and said, “Here, I just feel like everything is possible.”

This was an especially fitting observation at the outset of the 2026 Spring Innovation Immersion trip to Silicon Valley through Gordon College’s Falcone Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership (CEL). Before visiting leading technology companies and meeting entrepreneurs and innovators, students began by experiencing the region itself—considering how its distinctive landscape, culture, and history have helped make the Bay Area a place where generations of people have imagined what might come next.

The experience brought together students from a range of disciplines—including business, political science, communication arts, and music—and dropped them into the heart of innovation and technology, giving each an opportunity to see how new ideas can extend into almost any vocation.

And for Sleeva, that’s exactly the kind of transformation CEL is designed to create.

Dr. Sheryl Sleeva is a professor in the practice of entrepreneurship and innovation and director of the Falcone Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership.

Bringing Entrepreneurship to Gordon

In 2024, Dr. Sheryl Sleeva joined Gordon College’s School of Business as a professor in the practice of entrepreneurship and innovation and soon proved instrumental in launching the College’s entrepreneurship and innovation major. She was also appointed director of the Falcone Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership.

“Before Gordon, I spent almost three decades leading strategy, innovation, and new venture development at Fortune 500 companies,” shares Sleeva.

Sleeva began teaching undergraduates at Iona University and quickly fell in love with it. “I started to feel this huge tug of my heart, and I said to the Lord, ‘If this is something you want me to do full time, I’m willing to lay down some things.’” 

In the weeks following that prayer, she heard about the opening at Gordon. ”I knew I couldn’t ignore it . . . This is my third career, but my best.” 

Sleeva’s passion for innovation, young entrepreneurs, and connecting people is evident in the work she has done at Gordon, from helping launch the major to expanding experiential opportunities beyond the classroom.  

When designing the entrepreneurship and innovation major, she wanted to ensure the College supported four primary career paths: starting or owning a small business, creating or joining a for-profit venture with the potential to scale, pursuing nonprofit and ministry work, and launching social ventures where the mission is the primary focus rather than profit. Understanding the varying paths students might pursue has also helped Sleeva shape CEL as a resource for the broader Gordon community. 

An Accelerant for CEL

CEL began in 2013 with a focus on nonprofit and social enterprise. From the beginning, it was designed as a co-curricular initiative—learning that happens beyond the classroom. Today, although housed within the School of Business, CEL remains interdisciplinary and offers speaker series, pitch competitions, and internship connections that are relevant to students pursuing all majors at Gordon.

Since coming on board as director, Sleeva’s vision has been for CEL to be both an active contributor to and participant in the entrepreneurial ecosystem surrounding Gordon—from Beverly to Salem to Boston.

“CEL is designed to support the micro entrepreneurial ecosystem here on campus, as well as engage Gordon College with the larger, macro ecosystems that we sit in.”

In practice, this means connecting Gordon students with entrepreneurs, innovators, mentors, alumni, and organizations beyond campus while also inviting those relationships and experiences into the Gordon community.

Innovation in Practice

As part of CEL’s focus on vocational experiential learning, the Center offers a faculty-led, academically driven immersion trip. “Our students aren’t just studying entrepreneurship, innovation, leadership, and business through textbooks,” shares Sleeva. “They’re engaging directly with the people, the organizations, and the ecosystems shaping those fields.”

Before a trip, students are assigned key readings, asked to research the companies they’re visiting, and tasked with exploring the backgrounds of the people they’ll meet. Throughout the trip, students are given both daily and ongoing assignments that help make room to pause and digest what they’re experiencing. 

Miriam, a political science major with minors in business management and innovation and social enterprise, had initially wondered how entrepreneurship could fit into her own vocational interests. A conversation with Sleeva helped her see the possibilities.

“I met with Dr. Sleeva and told her what I was interested in. She helped me see how entrepreneurship and innovation is something you can take everywhere and anywhere. And once I met with her, I made the plan to start my two minors and take Intro to Entrepreneurship last fall. I immediately loved it. It felt like I was actually exercising skills I didn’t really know that I had.”

That interdisciplinary mindset was reinforced throughout the 2026 California immersion trip. Students saw how innovation can shape not only new businesses but also the environments where people work and the ways organizations solve problems.

At Adobe’s headquarters, Miriam saw firsthand how something as seemingly simple as color could be used to influence the workplace. The company uses “color theory” to distinguish coworking spaces, quiet workspaces, and recreational areas, demonstrating how thoughtful design can shape the employee experience.

At Apple and Google, Stephen Hincken ’27, a double major in business management and entrepreneurship and innovation, observed something less tangible but equally influential: culture.

“Our site visits included tours of Apple headquarters and Google headquarters. I really developed an understanding of their contrasting cultures. Google emphasized a fun, quirky, diverse culture that was open to creativity and marketing. Apple was much more rigid and structured—very intellectual and straight cut . . . I think that really affects the workplace culture.”

For Hincken, the experience also demonstrated that some of the most valuable lessons in entrepreneurship happen through relationships.

“One of the biggest highlights for me was the faith-driven entrepreneur network out there. We met the starting founder of Tektones, a Christian [toy building set] company, and the founder of Cadence AI, which is a workplace platform optimization tool . . . The Tektones founder shared one quote that stuck with me, ‘God doesn’t care about how successful we are. He cares about who we’re becoming.’”

“Dr. Sleeva is a networking powerhouse,” says Miriam with a laugh. “We went to this kind of incubator accelerator called Playground where they host different startups. They had a mingling hour with all of these potentially very important people. Dr. Sleeva was like, ‘Let’s go talk to people,’ and just walked off . . . From that, I think we all realized the benefit of asking people questions and just going up to people and making those connections.”

After the event, several attendees complimented the Gordon group on their willingness to engage. For Miriam, those conversations opened another layer: the opportunity to wrestle with what innovation means for Christians.

“We had some incredible conversations, especially when visiting the AI and tech companies and wrestling with each other over lunch afterwards. Like what does it mean to steward creation well and to steward our time? We believe there’s a beauty in doing work. How can we glorify God in that?”

Those questions became particularly significant as students encountered technologies that are rapidly reshaping the way people work and live.

Myla Glaser ’29 shared on experiencing that future firsthand, from competitive virtual reality games to a ride in a driverless car.

“In the virtual reality game, we laughed the entire time because you had avatars who didn’t even look like you. We also tried Waymo—completely driverless cars. They had cameras on the top and sides; they had cameras everywhere! You could see on the screen how it was sensing the cars around you, and you got to choose your own music.”

Throughout the trip, Gordon students visited the headquarters of leading technology business like Adobe and Google, as well as early stage AI and robotics ventures.

Endless Possibilities

A sense of possibility became one of the most lasting takeaways from the trip. Students returned to Gordon not simply inspired by what they had seen, but increasingly confident that they could contribute to the work of innovation themselves.

“I think Christians working out in Silicon Valley or in Boston or New York or wherever they may be should care [about innovation],” shared Miriam. “There’s a lot of possibility and a lot of hopefulness in terms of what could be done redemptively in the world through technology.”

“I have so many ideas and ideally want to work on them all. I would love to start one or multiple businesses. This trip affirmed I can,” reflected Myla.

For Hincken, that possibility was connected to something larger than entrepreneurship itself.

“This trip brought about a little community of CEL students and entrepreneurship students who have a similar mindset and goals—and a similar mission to want to use entrepreneurship to better and serve the world.”

And that, ultimately, is the heart of CEL’s experiential approach: giving students the opportunity to encounter new ideas, ask difficult questions, build relationships, and begin imagining what they might contribute.

Exploring creativity from different angles, students step inside an interactive exhibit that physically shifts their perspective.

Preparing the People of God

When asked about her reflection at the Marin Headlands, Miriam said, “I really just felt like everything was possible. Like we could just do everything if we really applied ourselves to it. I think there was this sense of realizing that all of those people in Silicon Valley are people like I am.”

She continued, “We were really excited about bringing some of that energy and inspiration back to Gordon College. To think about developing innovators here and what that might do to Gordon and the North Shore and the Boston area and the East Coast. What might we do as we think about innovating to create a better environment for our students, our churches, and the other places we may go after Gordon.”

This inspired sense of wonder is exactly what Sleeva hopes for CEL and its students. “We want students who are passionate about problem solving and have a kingdom mindset,” she says.

Gordon’s School of Business and the Falcone Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership aren’t simply aimed at preparing students to succeed in the marketplace. They’re equipping students as the future workforce to consider how their gifts, ideas, and work can contribute to the flourishing of our world.

Interested in becoming a mentor? Have a business problem you’d like Gordon students to innovate for you? Learn more and get involved with the Falcone Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership at gordon.edu/CEL.