Stevens ranks with Top 25 “Most Entrepreneurial Campuses”

HOBOKEN, N.J. — The Princeton Review has ranked Stevens Institute of Technology among the Top 25 American colleges and universities that have tailored their undergraduate business and technology curricula to encourage young entrepreneurs, providing them with the training and guidance they need to start their own businesses. The rankings were released Friday, Oct. 22, via the Forbes.com website.

The Princeton Review examined and critiqued 357 national programs, with the result being its new list of America’s Most Entrepreneurial Campuses 2004. Ranked at #18, Stevens is the sole university on the list to be situated in the hub of world commerce near New York City, at the heart of the Philadelphia-Boston axis of higher educational institutions.

This recognition comes only weeks after the high-level executive readership of Optimize magazine selected Stevens’ Howe School of Technology Management as offering one the five top graduate programs geared to preparing business executives in the management of technology-oriented businesses. Stevens was also the only New York-Metro area institution mentioned among the Optimize Top Five. Others in that list were Babson, Carnegie Mellon, MIT and Stanford.

Stevens’ President Harold J. Raveche took stock of the Institute’s rising profile.

“Following a trend of national recognition for the Institute’s education and research initiatives,” he said, “two national publications have ranked Stevens among the best in the country for excellence in its graduate and undergraduate education programs. This ranking positions Stevens as one of the top schools teaching undergraduates about how to start their own businesses, supporting them with mentoring and venture funds. We are building on these and other initiatives to move ahead in the rankings of major research universities, where our goal is to be counted among the Top 50.”

“Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard, Ray Kroc sold milkshake machines, and Henry Ford repaired steam engines,” state The Princeton Review’s editors. “None of these legendary entrepreneurs took the standard path to getting ahead in business – they had original ideas, a do-it-yourself spirit, and the desire to succeed …Unfortunately, those qualities are hard to teach. Most schools instruct business students in finance, accounting, law, and they often provide a strong alumni network. But it’s much harder to train students to go out and start the next Amazon.com , Cisco Systems, or eBay.

“ Stevens’ Technogenesis® program partners students with experts at organizations, including Johnson & Johnson and AT&T,” the editors continue, “to develop new technologies and get them to the marketplace. The school sponsors internships and mentoring relationships with companies across New Jersey and New York City.”

To determine the country’s Most Entrepreneurial Campuses, The Princeton Review solicited data from 357 top colleges and universities around the country, asking them to identify everything from courses of study to prominent alumni. (The editors specifically cite Stevens alumni Eugene McDermott, a founder of Texas Instruments, where the first microchip originated; and Walter Kidde, a pioneer in engineered fire safety in building construction.) Editors from the Review examined their surveys and awarded points for each question based on its perceived importance to a good entrepreneurial education.

To view the full list of the 25 Most Entrepreneurial Campuses in America, please visit: http://www.forbes.com/lists/2004/10/21/cx_de_102104conncampentreprefeat.html

About Stevens Institute of Technology

Founded in 1870, Stevens Institute of Technology is one of the leading technological universities in the world dedicated to learning and research. Through its broad-based curricula, nurturing of creative inventiveness, and cross disciplinary research, the Institute is at the forefront of global challenges in engineering, science, and technology management. Partnerships and collaboration between, and among, business, industry, government and other universities contribute to the enriched environment of the Institute. A new model for technology commercialization in academe, known as Technogenesis®, involves external partners in launching business enterprises to create broad opportunities and shared value.

Stevens offers baccalaureates, master’s and doctoral degrees in engineering, science, computer science and management, in addition to a baccalaureate degree in the humanities and liberal arts, and in business and technology. The university has a total enrollment of 2,150 undergraduate and 3,500 graduate students, with about 250 full-time faculty. Stevens’ graduate programs have attracted international participation from China, India, Southeast Asia, Europe and Latin America. Additional information may be obtained from its web page at www.stevens.edu.  

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