A committee of the National
Consortium of Entrepreneurship Centers (NCEC) announced
in September that the Lester Center was chosen to
receive the 2006 NASDAQ Center of Entrepreneurial Excellence
Award in recognition of the center's advancement of
the discipline of entrepreneurship. This special award
was created by NASDAQ in association with the National
Consortium of Entrepreneurship Centers for the purpose
of recognizing the unique achievements and outstanding
efforts of entrepreneurship centers across the United
States.
The center's overall reputation
for developing entrepreneurship is one of the reasons
the Lester Center was honored, according to Kelley School
of Business Professor Donald Kuratko at Indiana University,
Bloomington, who was one of this year's judges. Kuratko
also praised the work of Lester Center Executive Director
Jerry Engel in bringing the center into the national
spotlight.
"It is a great honor to be recognized by our peers
as a leader in the field of entrepreneurship education,"
says Engel. "This recognition, coupled with our
recent ranking by The Wall Street Journal as the #3
entrepreneurship program in the nation, is a tremendous
validation of our efforts and the quality of our very
entrepreneurial student body."
Entrepreneurship professors
and previous winners evaluate entrepreneurship centers
from around the country, honoring those that distinguish
themselves in research and curriculum, outreach to emerging
ventures, community collaborations, and overall prestige
in the field. The award was presented to the the Lester
Center’s Executive Director, Jerry Engel, by a
NASDAQ executive at the annual meeting of the National
Consortium of Entrepreneurship Centers (NCEC), which
was held this year on October 13-14 in Cincinnati. The
award was founded by NASDAQ in 1999 in association with
the NCEC.
