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Nine Sisters Win Top Award 2/5/2010

The Entrepreneurship Education Consortium (EEC) was awarded the 2010 United States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship (USASBE) “National Outstanding Entrepreneurship Pedagogy Award” at their national conference in Nashville, Tennessee on January 16, 2010. USASBE has over 800 members and is the world’s leading academic organization for teaching and research in the field of entrepreneurship. One of USASBE’s highest awards, EEC was selected for their exemplary program that reflects innovation, quality, comprehensiveness, sustainability, transferability, depth of support, and impact.

The Entrepreneurship Education Consortium
The EEC is a successful, innovative, self-funding model of entrepreneurship education created as a collaborative effort among nine universities and colleges in Northeast Ohio. The members of the EEC are: Ashland University, Baldwin-Wallace College, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland State University, Hiram College, John Carroll University, Kent State University, Lake Erie College and The University of Akron.

The EEC has two major initiatives: An annual Entrepreneurship Immersion Week for undergraduates during the summer and a regional Business Idea Competition called EEC ideaLabs. Students compete on their individual campuses, and the winners compete in the EEC regional competition.

The EEC was founded to promote both the concept and the reality of entrepreneurship among college students of all disciplines. Beyond imparting the necessary classroom fundamentals, it encourages student exploration of new business concepts. Where feasible, the EEC facilitates the entrepreneurial process up to the interface for project funding which leads to the actual startup of new enterprises.

The EEC educates top students at our respective institutions who are most likely to become entrepreneurs and remain in the region after graduation. These students learn about entrepreneurship and choose to either create new enterprises which will create new jobs and generate wealth for the region, or become entrepreneurs within existing organizations. The economic future of our region will be shaped by the students we educate.

For additional information, please contact: Dr. John C. Soper, the Kahl Chair in Entrepreneurship • Boler School of Business • John Carroll University 20700 North Park Boulevard • University Heights, Ohio 44118 • 216-397-3027 DD • jsoper@jcu.edu