UT’s MBA Program in Entrepreneurship Awarded National Recognition as the Model Program for 2000

February 21, 2000, AUSTIN, Texas - The University of Texas’ MBA Program in Entrepreneurship was awarded the United States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship’s (USASBE) Year 2000 National Model Entrepreneurship Program Award. The award was presented at the USASBE annual meeting in San Antonio on Saturday, February 19.

The Texas Business School’s MBA Program in Entrepreneurship was judged on overall quality of the program, innovativeness and uniqueness, comprehensiveness and longevity and sustainability. The judging criteria also included the transferability of the program’s concepts and ideas to other colleges and universities.

In presenting the program before the panel of judges, Dr. Gary M. Cadenhead, Senior Lecturer in Entrepreneurship and Director of the Moot Corp Program at The University of Texas at Austin, cited the Texas Business School’s commitment to entrepreneurship, the quality, longevity and resources of the program, the quality of the entrepreneurship faculty and their commitment to teaching excellence and strong support of the Austin entrepreneurship and business community as major strengths of the program.

“Our five core courses based on the life phases of a new venture and taught by the case method plus the Moot Corp course in which MBAs write business plans for new ventures offers Texas MBAs an entrepreneurial experience unmatched by any business school in the world,” said Dr. Cadenhead.

The MBA Program in Entrepreneurship has been an integral part of the MBA curriculum for many years beginning in 1979 with the first entrepreneurship class. The highly regarded Moot Corp program is now in its 17^th year. The program has continued to grow in prestige and international acclaim and has spawned Moot Corp competitions in Asia, Australia, Africa and Canada.

The quality of the faculty dedicated to entrepreneurship at UT is unparalleled. Fifteen faculty teach core and elective entrepreneurship courses. Of these, the five faculty members who launched the concentration are still teaching it and 13 faculty members have run their own businesses. The Foundation for Entrepreneurial Excellence provides teaching support to each professor with one-on-one consulting in technique, teaching seminars throughout the year by master teachers, peer group review and dynamic feedback from students.

The University of Texas at Austin and the Austin business community have shown their commitment to furthering the entrepreneurship program by dedicating vast resources to the program. The school supports high-tech start-ups through the Austin Technology Incubator which fosters connections among technology, capital and conventional know-how. The program is further enhanced by the close working relationship with IC², a technology commercialization center, and the Texas Capital Network.

It is this real-world experience garnered by the students which makes the program unique. The Moot Corp Competition gives MBAs the opportunity to write business plans and present them to investors. Each year, MBAs are launching ventures out of this process. Eleven firms have been launched during the nineties and are still in operation. The first IPO should occur this year and two firms are in the process of being launched this spring.

The Texas Business School at The University of Texas at Austin has one of the most highly ranked entrepreneurship programs in the world. UT’s MBA Program is ranked among the top ten worldwide in both Entrepreneurship and Information Technology according to the Financial Times on January 24, 2000.

USASBE is a non-profit organization devoted to continuing management education for entrepreneurs and small business. USASBE is an eclectic group of government officials, directors of small business development centers, and academics in fields like finance, marketing, management, and economics united by their common interest in entrepreneurship and small business.

CONTACT: For additional information, contact Dr. Gary Cadenhead at
512-471-5289 or gcadenhead@optionii.bus.utexas.edu, or Ann Whitt at 512-232-6597 or awhitt@optionii.bus.utexas.edu. For information on The University of Texas at Austin’s MBA Program in Entrepreneurship, visit www.bus.utexas.edu. For information about USASBE, visit www.usasbe.org.