McGuire Center Wins Award for Outstanding Contributions to Advance the Discipline of Entrepreneurship

Oct. 8, 2012
McGuire Center Wins Award for Outstanding Contributions to Advance the Discipline of Entrepreneurship

The McGuire Center for Entrepreneurship won a prestigious award for Outstanding Contributions to Advance the Discipline of Entrepreneurship at the 2012 Global Consortium of Entrepreneurship Centers Conference. The GCEC conference, hosted by Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business in Washington, DC, Oct. 4-6, brought together hundreds of the world’s leading entrepreneurship center directors.

The GCEC presented its inaugural Legacy Award to Gary D. Libecap, the founding director of the McGuire Center for Entrepreneurship. Sherry Hoskinson, Director of the McGuire Center, presented the award.

The GCEC Award for Outstanding Contributions to Advance the Discipline of Entrepreneurship honors a center dedicated to advancing, promoting and supporting entrepreneurship education as a field of study, teaching and outreach to one or a variety of communities.

The McGuire Center was evaluated on the following criteria:

  • Economic development and community outreach
  • Service to the discipline
  • Entrepreneurship education development and mentoring
  • Outreach programs
  • Stimulation of entrepreneurial opportunity

Hoskinson also presented Gary Libecap with the Inaugural Legacy Award. Libecap led the development of entrepreneurial study at the UA from its inception as an academic program in 1984. He stepped down after 21 years directing the McGuire Center for Entrepreneurship (then the Karl Eller Center) and the McGuire Entrepreneurship Program. Under Libecap’s direction, more than 850 students completed the entrepreneurship program and went on to launch more than 300 businesses and the program became a leader in undergraduate and graduate business education.  Libecap is now Professor of Corporate Environmental Management at the Bren School of Environmental Science & Management at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Hoskinson also presented a lecture at the conference on Research Frontiers with Donald F. Kuratko, Executive Director of the Johnson Center for Entrepreneurship at Indiana University.