Loyola Marymount University’s undergraduate entrepreneurship program in the College of Business Administration was named among the nation’s top 25 programs this year by The Princeton Review and Entrepreneur magazine.
The Fred Kiesner Center for Entrepreneurship was ranked 22nd in the magazine’s eighth annual listing of the Top 50 Entrepreneurial Colleges (25 undergraduate and 25 graduate programs), which was published today (Sept. 21).
More than 2,000 schools were surveyed in making the selections.
The program at LMU, launched in 1972, was one of the first in the country to teach entrepreneurship as a distinct discipline and its faculty includes some of the most-distinguished scholars in the field. Last year, the program was named The Fred Kiesner Center, when the College of Business Administration received a $5 million endowment from Ron Valenta, an alumnus and successful entrepreneur, who requested that the program be named after his former professor.
“We’ve always been a leader in entrepreneurship education. We started this program almost 40 years ago and it has remained one of the nation’s finest,” said Dennis Draper, dean of CBA. “Professor Kiesner and his colleagues continue to innovate and train the next generation of business leaders at LMU.”
The Princeton Review evaluates each school’s performance in teaching entrepreneurship and business fundamentals, staffing departments with successful entrepreneurs, providing excellence in mentorship, as well as creating entrepreneurial opportunities outside of the classroom.
“Behind the top-ranked schools is not only a great formal classroom experience, but a cross-disciplinary approach to teaching entrepreneurship that embraces and encourages a student’s vision to build a successful business,” said Robert Franek, The Princeton Review’s senior vice president of publishing and nationally recognized expert on college admissions.
The results of the survey, along with the analysis, appear in the October issue of Entrepreneur, which is available on newsstands Sept. 21.