Peoria, IL (September 19, 2013) — Bradley University’s entrepreneurship program has risen in a national ranking of the Top 25 programs in the nation, according to The Princeton Review.
The education services company named Bradley’s Turner School for Entrepreneurship and Innovation 19th up from 23rd last year in the list of Top 25 undergraduate programs for 2014.
Bradley announced the creation of the Robert and Carolyn Turner School of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, the first school of its type in the nation, last September. The Turner School is a stand-alone academic unit, offering students in all disciplines opportunities to study entrepreneurship and innovation in classrooms and experiential settings. Entrepreneurship education is historically restricted to students studying business or engineering, and is housed in a specific college, while the Turner School is available to students throughout the University.
Dr. Gerald Hills, Bradley’s Turner Chair of Entrepreneurship, says it’s an exciting development, to again be among the Top 25 universities. “This provides evidence that our new School of Entrepreneurship and Innovation is off to a good beginning. All five of our colleges deserve the credit for working together. We are striving to touch the lives of at least 1000 of our students each year, and this is one measure of our progress.”
Hills received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 32nd annual Babson Entrepreneurship Research Conference. He is the founder and president of the Collegiate Entrepreneurs’ Organization, which is on 240 campuses and holds an annual conference that attracts 1,400 attendees. He also is a co-founder and first president of both the U.S. Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship and the American Marketing Association Academic Council.
Based on surveys sent to school administrators at more than 2,000 institutions from April to June in 2013, the lists recognize 50 programs in all –- 25 undergraduate and 25 graduate – for their excellence in entrepreneurship education. The Princeton Review has reported these lists annually since 2006 in partnership with Entrepreneur Media Inc., publisher of Entrepreneur magazine.
The Princeton Review chooses the schools based on a wide range of institutional data it evaluates for this project. Schools are asked about the levels of their commitment to entrepreneurship inside and outside the classroom, the percentage of their faculty, students, and alumni actively and successfully involved in entrepreneurial endeavors, the number of their mentorship programs, and their funding for scholarships and grants for entrepreneurial studies and projects.
The top entrepreneurship program lists are posted on The Princeton Review’s website at www.princetonreview.com/entrepreneur. The magazine’s feature article will appear in its October issue, available on newsstands September 24.
Bradley is a top-ranked private, independent university in Peoria, Illinois, offering 5,700 students the choice of more than 100 academic programs. Bradley links academic excellence, experiential learning and leadership development with an entrepreneurial spirit for a world-class education. Its size provides students with extensive resources not available at most private colleges and the personal attention not commonly found at large universities.