WSU center rates well in SUCCESS
By Amy Geiszler-Jones
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Don Hackett, director of WSU's Center for Entrepreneurship, holds the February/March issue of SUCCESS magazine, which ranked WSU's center as one of the top 50 schools in the country. |
Don Hackett knew the competition would be fierce. He and the Center for Entrepreneurship staff were putting their program up against most of the nation’s elite entrepreneurship powerhouses – many of which include graduate degrees – and he wasn’t sure how WSU’s center would fare.
Nearly six months later, he got word of the ranking that would hit newsstands across the country: In its February/March issue, SUCCESS magazine rated WSU’s Center for Entrepreneurship as one of the top 50 schools for entrepreneurship in the country. WSU took this year’s number 32 slot above such schools as Carnegie Mellon University, the University of California at Berkeley, the University of Michigan, Brigham Young’s Marriott School and the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Schools were ranked according to a number of criteria, including caliber of candidates, community outreach, reputation among fellow schools, faculty, support for students and innovation. The online survey was distributed to more than 250 schools last September. An independent firm weighted the criteria.
"The thing that scared me was the heavy emphasis on graduate programs, but we ranked high because of our broad-based programs," says Hackett, who has directed the center since 1994. "We were going up against schools with strong, elite MBA and doctoral programs that are increasing their emphasis on entrepreneurship. Our focus is on the undergraduate level."
On the graduate level, WSU’s Barton School of Business offers entrepreneurship classes as electives in the MBA program.
The center was founded in 1977 by longtime WSU business faculty member Fran Jabara. It started offering seminars and community outreach programs, and by 1990 an undergraduate degree program in entrepreneurship was added. There are 129 majors currently in the program.
"Enrollment has gone up every year rather dramatically," Hackett says.
The center’s numerous community outreach programs include the Metro Awards, which recognize the fastest growing, privately held companies in the Wichita area; the nationally recognized Kansas Family Business Forum, which offers help for family businesses to survive into future generations; and "Your Future in Business," a popular summer workshop now in its 24th year that teaches individuals how to manage, finance and grow their businesses.
While WSU’s center was unique when it began in 1977, entrepreneurship is becoming a standard offering in business schools. Many programs are attracting generous endowments from donors. According to business school experts, an endowed professorship in entrepreneurship is created every three weeks in the United States.
"These rankings demonstrate that the bar is being raised as millions of dollars are being infused in entrepreneurial programs across the country," says Hackett. "We must invest more and work smarter in our entrepreneurial endeavors in order to move to the next level. We can’t just rest on our laurels."
The center was first recognized in 1994 by SUCCESS in its annual list of "Best Entrepreneurial Business Schools." In 1997, the magazine began ranking schools. The center also was ranked seventh in the nation in 1996 in an academic study of entrepreneurship programs. With the recent SUCCESS ranking, it becomes one of the highest nationally recognized academic programs at WSU.
