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Bauer College Ranks No. 2 on The Princeton Review, Entrepreneur List of Top Undergraduate Entrepreneurship Programs in the Nation
HOUSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--
The C. T. Bauer College of Business at the University of Houston
announced today a ranking for its entrepreneurship program indicative of
the college’s role in growing businesses and creating jobs in Houston.
Bauer College’s Cyvia and Melvyn Wolff Center for Entrepreneurship is
ranked No. 2 on The Princeton Review’s 2013 list of leading
undergraduate entrepreneurship programs in the U.S. for Entrepreneur
magazine. This marks the seventh consecutive year that Bauer has been
included on the top of the list.
“The Bauer College is proud to be Houston’s business resource, and this
ranking positions not only the college but the city as a leader in
entrepreneurship nationally,” Bauer College Dean Latha Ramchand said.
“Houston is a city that celebrates and rewards initiative. Here, if you
want to achieve something, you are given the resources to do so.”
Ramchand added, “The ‘can-do’ mentality that we see here at the Bauer
College is part of the fabric of Houston, a city built on the spirit of
entrepreneurship. If the nation’s fourth largest city can be built on
the banks of a bayou, I think that shows the kind of entrepreneurial
mindset that is part of Houston’s culture, and in turn, the culture here
at Bauer.”
The program again lands a top spot on the list of the Top 25
Undergraduate Schools for Entrepreneurs, released by The Princeton
Review and Entrepreneur on Sept. 20. The program was ranked
No. 1 in 2008, 2010 and 2011, No. 2 in 2007 and 2009, and No. 3 in 2012.
“The center’s continuing recognition, year after year, is a clear
indication of its fundamental excellence,” said UH President Renu
Khator. “This is certainly not surprising, and it’s perfectly
appropriate since Houston itself is such an entrepreneurial city. Our
students are acquiring the practical skills and academic background that
prepare them to succeed in a highly competitive arena — and play a vital
role in maintaining Houston’s robust economy.”
Ranking first and third on the list are Babson College and University of
Southern California respectively. Bauer College’s entrepreneurship
program tops Syracuse University, Baylor University, The University of
Oklahoma and 19 others that round out the list.
“We are proud of the students, faculty and staff of the Wolff Center for
Entrepreneurship at the Bauer College,” Ramchand said. “This is quite an
achievement — The Princeton Review is one of the country’s
premier ranking surveys for colleges, and Entrepreneur is the top
business title in the U.S.”
In the last year, Bauer College has extended its entrepreneurial reach
across the University of Houston campus and the city of Houston with
additional course offerings and events designed to promote
entrepreneurship and innovation.
“Through both curricular and extracurricular activities, for both
graduates and undergraduates, we are allowing students to experience
what it truly means to be an entrepreneur,” Ramchand said. “We are
connecting students across campus, while connecting the university to
the business community.”
In addition to offering competitive enrollment for undergraduates in the
Wolff Center for Entrepreneurship to earn bachelor of business
administration degrees, Bauer also offers experiential education in
entrepreneurship for all University of Houston students.
Launched this year, RED Labs is housed in Bauer College and serves as
the university’s technology startup accelerator, giving accepted
students access to resources typically unavailable to fledgling
companies. During the three-month program, students connect to mentors
and learn best practices for legal issues, fundraising, user experience
and business models as they grow their companies.
In addition to academic programs, Bauer serves as the hub for
entrepreneurial activity on campus and in the city through events
designed to promote innovation. Each fall, Cougar Pitch challenges
students, faculty, staff and alumni to present business ideas in
two-minute pitches to judges. The best ideas advance to the finals, with
the winners in each category taking home a cash prize to invest in their
ventures.
Another competition, 3 Day Startup, requires students from different
disciplines to form teams as they spend the weekend on campus and create
plans for technology companies. On the final day of competition, teams
sell their ideas to judges, who give feedback on the viability of their
plans.
“We are spreading our nets wide with several different offerings, all
meant to create, nurture and foster the spirit of entrepreneurship,”
Ramchand said.
The ranking for the city’s business school is the latest of a string of
national recognitions of the strength of the Houston job market and
economy, including top spots on lists from Forbes, Entrepreneur
and U.S. News & World Report. And, in the 2012
installment of its annual report, The Kauffman Foundation ranks Houston
among the fifteen leading cities in the U.S. in terms of entrepreneurial
activity.
Bauer College bolsters job creation and entrepreneurship in Houston,
with the Wolff Center for Entrepreneurship serving as the college’s
foundation for academic programming and events surrounding
entrepreneurship. Created in 1993, the program began offering Bauer
students entrepreneurship as a major in 1995 after approval from the
Commission for Higher Education. Since then, the program has flourished
and developed courses for entrepreneurship majors as well as business
minors and students from all disciplines at the University of Houston,
now attracting more than 1,900 students a year.
Faculty teaching in the entrepreneurship program at Bauer have a
combined 280 years of experience in business and are themselves
experienced entrepreneurs who have landed, bought and successfully run
their own ventures. About 52 percent of undergraduate students at Bauer
participate in the program, along with students from other majors across
the university.
The program has also gained respect from members of the Houston
community, who mentor students in the program. Longstanding and highly
respected Houstonians Cyvia and Melvyn Wolff became the namesakes of the
program in 2008. Wolff is a 1953 graduate of Bauer College, a member of
the Dean’s Executive Board and chairman of the board for Star Furniture,
a Berkshire-Hathaway company.
Students from the program have gone on to start successful companies in
a range of industries, including nonprofits, technology, food service
and retail.
“The recognition from The Princeton Review and Entrepreneur
validates what we do in our program, as do the success stories of Wolff
Center graduates, who have transformed their passions into viable
startups, not only employing themselves but countless others,” Ramchand
said.
Bauer College offers its entrepreneurship students a complete and
comprehensive program that includes a six-course lockstep program as
well as several enrichment activities to supplement the academic
instruction. Each year, between 30 and 35 students are selected through
a rigorous application process to take the Wolff Center’s major program
in entrepreneurship.
In addition, the WCE certification program in corporate entrepreneurship
is the foundation of the college’s global business minor for
non-business students. Nearly 1,000 non-business students take WCE
courses each year and have an opportunity to see how entrepreneurial
thinking can be applied to their interests in engineering, science,
social science or the arts.
Each year, an average of 65 percent of WCE students started a business
while in school or shortly after graduating. Others go on to join
existing ventures and to apply the entrepreneurial lessons learned at UH
Bauer to innovate and expand those businesses. WCE students have also
won numerous awards in national business plan competitions — even
outperforming MBA teams from other schools including Carnegie Mellon.
Students in Bauer’s executive MBA program have also had the opportunity
to take elective courses in entrepreneurship and corporate
entrepreneurship.
The Princeton Review determined the rankings of both graduate and
undergraduate programs by evaluating key criteria in the areas of
academics and requirements, students and faculty, and
outside-the-classroom support and experiences from more than 2,000
programs that were surveyed.
For more information and a complete listing of the schools included on
the list, go to www.entrepreneur.com/topcolleges.
Full details also appear in the October issue of Entrepreneur available
to subscribers today.
About the University of Houston
The University of Houston, Texas’ premier metropolitan research and
teaching institution is home to more than 40 research centers and
institutes and sponsors more than 300 partnerships with corporate, civic
and governmental entities. UH, the most diverse research university in
the country, stands at the forefront of education, research and service
with more than 35,000 students.
About the C. T. Bauer College of Business
The C. T. Bauer College of Business has been in operation for more than
60 years at the University of Houston main campus. Through its five
academic departments, the college offers a full-range of undergraduate,
masters and doctoral degrees in business. The Bauer College is fully
accredited by the AACSB International – the Association to Advance
Collegiate Schools of Business. In August 2000, Houston business leader
and philanthropist Charles T. (Ted) Bauer endowed the College of
Business with a $40 million gift. In recognition of his generosity, the
college was renamed the C. T. Bauer College of Business.
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