HU Business School Receives National Award

Hampton, VA - The Hampton University Center for Entrepreneurial Studies (CES) in the School of Business recently received the National Minority Business Council (NMBC), Inc.’s Outstanding Education and Training Institution Award for 2009.

The award acknowledges CES’s aim to be a leader in research and educational programming to increase the number and quality of minority entrepreneurs.

“We were happy to hear that the award had been given to Hampton,” said Dr. Sid Credle, dean of the HU School of Business. “The entrepreneurship studies faculty and the director, Larry Gillus, have worked very hard over the years to make the program one of distinction.”

The HU School of Business was established in September 1898. The first business course was offered to a small group of students to provide skills in managing small businesses. Students in the School of Business may pursue majors in one of eight areas: Accounting, Banking, Finance, Business Administration, Economics, Entrepreneurship, Management, and Marketing. At the graduate level, an MBA program is offered in two configurations.

William Johnson, who received a bachelor’s degree in entrepreneurial studies from HU in 2007, said the program helped him in both a corporate and a practical sense.

“The number one thing we were taught was how to capitalize on business opportunities,” said Johnson, now a business banking officer at PNC bank in his hometown of Pittsburgh. “A lot of the presentations and skills we practiced in the program were applicable to the real world, from small things like dressing appropriately, to eye contact and addressing your audience.”

The national award to HU will be presented at a Feb. 25 luncheon in New York City at the New York Marriott Marquis. The luncheon theme is, “Thirty Years of Honoring Corporate and Minority Business Leadership.” The NMBC was founded in 1972 as a full-service, non-profit (501)(c)(3) corporation, according to its website, that is committed to expanding opportunities to small, minority and women business owners.