News > October 30, 2008

By Blaize Cane | Contributing writer

The university took home two awards from the Global Consortium of Entrepreneurship Centers (GCEC) at the group’s 2008 conference held in Tucson, Ariz. This marks the first time any school has won two such awards in one year.

The GCEC is an organization with more than 200 members working together to foster the growth of university-based entrepreneurship centers and to address specific issues and challenges in entrepreneurship education.

The intent of the organization is to provide a coordinated vehicle where participating members can collaborate and communicate on the specific issues and challenges confronting university-based entrepreneurship centers.

The university’s Office of Entrepreneurship and Liberal Arts and the Babcock Graduate School of Management’s Angell Center for Entrepreneurship collaborated to jointly win the GCEC Award for Excellence in Entrepreneurship Teaching and Pedagogical Innovations along with the GCEC Award for Exceptional Activities in Entrepreneurship Across the Disciplines.

Winners of the Award for Excellence in Entrepreneurship Teaching and Pedagogical Innovations are judged on the general teaching and learning environment and student successes in new venues.

They are also evaluated based on evidence of innovation, such as developing new courses, implementing initiatives to support entrepreneurship teaching, integrating programs in the sciences and the arts, and supporting student-organized activities.

“The Angell Center for Entrepreneurship and the Office of Entrepreneurship and Liberal Arts have taken leadership roles in developing new courses, pedagogy and curriculum,” Stan Mandel, director of the Angell Center for Entrepreneurship, said.

Mandel has participated in the start-up of more than 15 organizations in the medical device, education, biotechnology, retail, financial services, health care, consulting and nonprofit sectors.

Recipients of the Award for Exceptional Activities in Entrepreneurship Across the Disciplines are judged on overall leadership and accomplishments, availability of programs to interested learners, involvement of non-business faculty, curriculum development, integrated campus-wide initiatives and interdisciplinary programs, innovative model programs and key partnerships and collaborations.

“The Wake Forest program in entrepreneurship seeks to bridge across all disciplines, making entrepreneurship an integral part of the university experience,” Elizabeth Gatewood, director of the Office of Entrepreneurship and Liberal Arts, said.

Gatewood leads the university’s efforts to instill entrepreneurial thinking and action across the campus. In 2004, Entrepreneur magazine named Gatewood one of the top 10 entrepreneurship center directors in the country.

The university’s Office of Entrepreneurship and Liberal Arts was established in July 2004 to coordinate and oversee the range of entrepreneurial activities across the various disciplines of the university.

During the 2007-2008 academic year, more than 10 percent of the university’s 4,400 undergraduate students enrolled in one or more entrepreneurship course, and 187 students from 28 different majors chose the new entrepreneurship and social enterprise minor, which has become the fastest growing and largest minor on campus.

Today, GCEC stands as the premier leadership organization addressing the emerging topics of importance to the nation’s university-based centers for entrepreneurship.

“Winning these awards is an indication of our efforts to begin branding entrepreneurship as a university-wide phenomenon at Wake Forest,” Mandel said.