TUSCALOOSA, Ala. - The entrepreneurship program at The University of Alabama’s Culverhouse College of Commerce and Business Administration is listed as one of the Top 100 U.S. Colleges and Universities for Entrepreneurs in the April 2003 issue of Entrepreneur magazine. More than 700 entrepreneurship programs were included in the study.

The study noted the emphasis placed on family business issues by the Family Business Forum at UA.

The report is Entrepreneur's first evaluation of the best entrepreneurship programs at U.S. colleges and universities. The study was conducted from September to December 2002 by TechKnowledge Point Corp. of Santa Barbara, Calif. Founded in 2001 by David Newton, TechKnowledge Point is the world's first entrepreneurship/business development research and referral exchange.

The researchers used more than 30 criteria in the study, including course offerings, faculty teaching and research, business community outreach, research centers and institutes, degrees and certificates offered, and faculty and alumni evaluations. In addition, almost 300 colleges and universities responded to surveys designed to allow program directors, faculty and alumni to rank their own entrepreneurship programs against the competition. These results appear, along with the top 100 list, in Entrepreneur's April issue. The article can also be found at http://www.entrepreneur.com.

“I think the world economy is such that there will be increasing emphasis on smaller, entrepreneurial organizations, and many of those are family businesses,” said Paavo Hanninen, director of the UA Small Business Development Center. “We are focusing on educating, encouraging and supporting those who want to successfully originate and operate new business ventures and develop new ventures in existing corporations.”

The Culverhouse College of Commerce and Business Administration, founded in 1919, has been consistently ranked among the top business schools in the nation. The undergraduate program is currently 45th in the U.S. News and World Report rankings and the Culverhouse School of Accountancy is ranked 19th nationally by the CPA Personnel Report.