The Riata Center for Entrepreneurship honored with NASDAQ excellence award
Tuesday, October 9, 2012
The Riata Center for Entrepreneurship in the Spears School of Business continues to receive national recognition. The Oklahoma State University entrepreneurship outreach program received one of its most prestigious honors when it was selected to receive the NASDAQ Center of Entrepreneurship Excellence Award this past weekend.
The award has been presented annually since 2000 by NASDAQ in association with the Global Consortium of Entrepreneurship Centers (GCEC). GCEC is the premier organization for university and collegiate entrepreneurship centers with close to 300 members attending it national conference each year. The NASDAQ award recognizes the unique achievements and outstanding efforts of top entrepreneurship centers across the world.
Nola Miyasaki, director of OSU’s Riata Center for Entrepreneurship, accepted the award during the GCEC annual conference thispast weekend in Washington, D.C.
“It’s even more rewarding when peers across the nation select your program as the best,” said Larry Crosby, dean of the Spears School of Business, acknowledging that nominations for the award are submitted by previous recipients, and judging is done by a panel of NASDAQ winners and NASDAQ executives.
The OSU entrepreneurship program is one of the youngest to ever receive the NASDAQ award. The Spears School has offered entrepreneurship since the 1990s, but the Riata Center and the School of Entrepreneurship were launched in 2009, and in a very short period of time have created significant impact on the campus, nationally and internationally.
OSU’s program was one of only a handful across the nation last month to have both its undergraduate and graduate programs recognized as the best, according to the Princeton Review and Entrepreneur magazine. The program is ranked No. 14 at the graduate level and No. 22 at the undergraduate level in the 2012 Princeton Review/Entrepreneur rankings. More than 2,000 programs were reviewed in the 10th annual survey that ranks the top entrepreneurship programs in the nation.
“These are exciting times to be a part of the OSU Spears School of Business, its School of Entrepreneurship, and the Riata Center for Entrepreneurship,” said Crosby. “The rapid success and recognition of our entrepreneurship programs is testament to the caliber and dedication of thefaculty, staff, students and alumni supporters who are behind these efforts. It is also further evidence of the progress OSU is making toward becoming a premier land grand institution by addressing issues of vital importance to the prosperity of Oklahoma, the nation and the world.”
The NASDAQ honor lauds the accomplishments and unique structure of the Riata Center but also OSU’s School of Entrepreneurship, which together have made advancements in entrepreneurial field in the following areas: entrepreneurship research, outreach to emerging ventures, entrepreneurship curriculum, community collaborations, special projects, and overall prestige and recognition in the entrepreneurship field.