Belmont University’s entrepreneurship program was honored as the top program in the country in teaching and innovation Saturday evening by the Global Consortium of Entrepreneurship Centers (GCEC) during the organization’s annual conference. Designed to showcase and celebrate the very best of university entrepreneurship, the GCEC presented Belmont’s Center for Entrepreneurship with the Award for Excellence in Entrepreneurship Teaching and Pedagogical Innovation, an award whose prior recipients include Villanova University (PA), University of Maryland and Wake Forest University (NC). This year Belmont’s program beat out peer finalists from the University of North Carolina, University of Florida, University of Arizona, University of St Thomas and Milliken University to be named the top program.
The GCEC current membership totals 200 university-based entrepreneurship centers ranging in age from well established and nationally ranked to new and emerging centers. Each year a global conference is held on the campus of a GCEC member school with the 2012 conference held this past weekend at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.
Dr. Jeff Cornwall, director of Belmont’s Center for Entrepreneurship and the Jack C. Massey chair of entrepreneurship, said, “We are honored to be singled out from a group of entrepreneurship programs that includes several of the leading programs in the country. The fact that this award recognizes innovation in all aspects of our program, including undergraduate, graduate and co-curricular activities, is particularly rewarding.”
The GCEC Award for Excellence in Entrepreneurship Teaching and Pedagogical Innovation requires a “Center committed to maximum current and future student benefit through excellence in teaching and pedagogy, demonstrated by activities to change and improve the way entrepreneurship is taught and learned and to expanding the potential in the field, and through affiliated faculty and instructors who teaching approach seeks to create a broad skills-set to equip entrepreneurial thinkers.” Nominees were judged on the teaching/learning environment, student successes and outcomes, the program’s innovative approaches and activities, and overall achievements.
The Global Consortium of Entrepreneurship Centers (GCEC), formerly the National Consortium of Entrepreneurship Centers (NCEC), was founded in 1996. The intent of the organization is to provide a coordinated vehicle through which participating members can collaborate and communicate on the specific issues and challenges confronting university-based entrepreneurship centers.
