Idea Center receives Outstanding Student Engagement and Leadership Award

Author: Nick Swisher

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The Idea Center at the University of Notre Dame earned top honors for student engagement at the Global Consortium of Entrepreneurship Centers global conference Oct. 20 in Chicago, winning the Outstanding Student Engagement and Leadership Award.

This award recognizes the entrepreneurship center with the strongest set of programs and initiatives that engage a broad spectrum of students, empower students to lead their own entrepreneurial endeavors and make student leadership in the center’s programs an essential part of its offerings. 

The 21-year-old Global Consortium of Entrepreneurship Centers is the leading academic organization where established and emerging university-based centers for entrepreneurship collaborate, share best practices, develop programs and initiatives and help advance entrepreneurship education. It has more than 225 members from universities around the world. 

A committee of judges, led by past winners, selected the Idea Center as the 2018 recipient for this award.

“We’re honored to be recognized for our efforts to engage students as part of the Idea Center’s mission of innovation and entrepreneurship,” said Bryan Ritchie, vice president and associate provost for innovation at Notre Dame. “Academic entrepreneurship is vitally important to a research university like Notre Dame, and this award validates our efforts to engage faculty and students in these efforts.”

The yearly conferences are hosted by member schools. DePaul University and the Illinois Institute of Technology hosted the 2018 Chicago event. 

The Global Consortium of Entrepreneurship Centers is the premier academic organization addressing the emerging topics of importance to the nation’s university-based centers for entrepreneurship. It has become the vehicle by which the top, established entrepreneurship centers, as well as emerging centers, can work together to share best practices, develop programs and initiatives, and collaborate and assist each other in advancing, strengthening and celebrating the role of universities in teaching the entrepreneurs of tomorrow.

The Global Consortium of Entrepreneurship Centers current membership totals more than 225 university-based entrepreneurship centers ranging from well-established and nationally ranked to new and emerging centers. Each year a global conference is held on the campus of a Global Consortium of Entrepreneurship Centers member school.

Originally published by Nick Swisher at ideacenter.nd.edu on Oct. 24.