The leaders behind the UAB Collat School of Business’s entrepreneur program are looking to grow it in 2022.
The entrepreneurship major and minor programs have grown to an estimated 150 students since the program began in 2020, according to Patrick Murphy, Goodrich endowed chair of entrepreneurship at UAB. The school received a $1 million gift in 2021 to fund student scholarships and program enhancements. Murphy said he expects the program to continue to grow in 2022, launch a $5 million fundraising campaign and recruit additional faculty to accommodate the growth.
Murphy said the money raised in the next fundraising campaign will go to scholarships, building out and reimagining UAB's space at Innovation Depot, hiring and program support. Program support includes assistance for pitch competitions and awards for the program.
The program is also planning to bring on more endowed professors and is planning to recruit nationally for the positions. For its space at Innovation Depot, Murphy said that the program is planning a full change, including new paint, new furniture, an expansion of the space and ultimately redesigning it so it can serve as a hybrid space for meetings, workshops and other uses.
The work done so far has paid off with recognition from the United States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship.
USASBE honored UAB’s program with the 2022 Model Emerging Program Award at its annual conference. USASBE noted UAB’s momentum, vision and its faculty and staff as primary factors for the recognition. The award also managed to put a national spotlight on the program
"This is the moment in which this is the first big moment we've had in UAB entrepreneurship where we've broken out onto the national scene," Murphy said. "A lot of people... who've never heard of UAB before now know about UAB because of this entrepreneurship award."
USASBE honored four university entrepreneurship programs with Excellence in Entrepreneurship Education Awards. The Model Emerging Program Award acknowledges new or recently restructured entrepreneurship programs with demonstrated student impact. Other award recipients this year included Virginia Tech, Southern Methodist University: Meadows School of the Arts and The Garage at Northwestern University.
“USASBE is the country’s premier professional organization for entrepreneurship educators and has been promoting entrepreneurship education worldwide for 40 years,” he said. “For it to recognize UAB as having the top emerging entrepreneurship program, to be judged as such by our peers, is a very powerful external validation.”
