For the second year running, the University of Utah’s David Eccles School of Business has made The Princeton Review and Entrepreneur magazine’s 2012 Top 25 rankings of entrepreneurship programs. This year, the school won rankings for both its graduate, and undergraduate experience-based programs. The rankings are based on surveys of administrators of nearly 2,000 schools about their entrepreneurship offerings.
The David Eccles School of Business debuted on the publication’s list for best undergraduate entrepreneurial programs in 2011. A year later, the school holds down No. 17 in that category—and received added honors as the nation’s 15th-ranked Graduate Entrepreneurial College.
“Once again, our emphasis on offering real world experience within our curriculum has earned the attention of this prestigious business publication,” said Taylor Randall, dean of the David Eccles School of Business. “Our students graduate with a solid understanding, beyond mere academics, of how an enterprise operates. That gives them confidence to create their own businesses as our next generation of entrepreneurs.”
The Pierre Lassonde Entrepreneur Center (https://www.lassonde.utah.edu/), and The Foundry (http://www.business.utah.edu/the-foundry), are keys to that success. U business students collaborate with entrepreneurs from other colleges on campus. The unique interdepartmental teamwork has resulted in the launch of 43 companies in its two years of operation. Thirty-four of those startups remain in operation, having generated $5.1 million in revenue, along with dozens of jobs.
Lassonde Center Executive Director Troy D’Ambrosio sees the latest Entrepreneur magazine rankings as a continuing testament to the university’s business education approach. “We have focused on creating opportunities for students to engage in activities they are passionate about, including starting companies, and a commercializing university technology; which has helped the university be a leader in this area, and helped social ventures succeed. We enhance the classroom by engaging students within a culture of innovation and commercialization,” says D’Ambrosio.
About the David Eccles School of Business
From its beginnings in 1896 as part of the Economics and Sociology Department, what is now the David Eccles School of Business (http://www.business.utah.edu/) educates nearly 4,000 students a year, and boasts more than 25,000 alumni. Students manage a university venture fund of $18.3 million, the largest of its kind in the nation. In January, the school opened its new, $72 million Spencer F. Eccles Building, offering students a cutting-edge learning environment packed with state-of-the-art technology.
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