According to the United States Small Business Administration, small businesses in America represent 99.7 percent of all employer firms, employ half of all private sector employees, and pay more than 45 percent of total U.S. private payroll.

How does one go about starting a small business? What are the steps needed to succeed and stay in business once it is started? This fall, Northwest Mississippi Community College hopes to be able to help students find those answers through “Entrepreneurship,” a new class being offered beginning in August.

The class will be taught by Bettye Johnson and will be offered both at the Senatobia and Southaven campuses. According to Johnson, this class will cover everything from starting a small business to dissolution of a small business. It will include business plans, marketing, financial statements, all the legal requirements, and sales tax, Johnson said. The class will also cover franchises, she said.

For those students majoring in business administration starting in fall 2007, the class will be a required course, she said, but current students already majoring in business may also want to take the class. “This would be a great elective for those already in the business program, but it will also be a good class for anyone who is interested in starting a business of their own,” Johnson said. “We are very excited about being able to offer this course.”

Northwest is coming on board with other colleges and universities, according to an article “Entrepreneurship 101” in the Weekly Review of the Wall Street Journal. The article states that today, about 2,140 two and four-year colleges offer the course, up from about 1,400 in 1998, and fewer than 300 in 1980. “Increasingly, universities have awakened to the fact that many of their graduates are likely to work for themselves someday,” the article states.

Johnson is also excited about the textbook for the course. She and other instructors are going to be able to add their own work to the textbook, which the textbook company will print for them and include in the book. “The students will have our work, geared to our class here at Northwest, at their fingertips in their textbook,” she said.

Johnson has been an instructor at Northwest for four years. She graduated from the Mississippi University of Women with a bachelor’s in accounting, and from Mississippi State University with a master’s in education and accounting. She is a Certified Public Accountant. She teaches Accounting I and II, Introduction to Business and Business Mathematics.

Johnson said that the class will definitely transfer to the University of Mississippi, and she expects that it will transfer to other four-year universities as well. The class will be offered Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 9 a.m. on the Senatobia campus, and Tuesdays, from 3:30- 6:15 p.m. at the DeSoto Center. or more information, contact the Johnson in the Business division at 662-562-3296 or e-mail bjohnson@northwestms.edu.