Academy for Entrepreneurial Leadership | Illinois

The Academy for Entrepreneurial Leadership announced the newest class of Academy Graduate Scholars in March of 2006.  Thirteen students were selected from a pool of 18 applicants representing eight colleges and twelve departments across the Urbana-Champaign campus.

The purpose of the Graduate Scholars program is to encourage a diverse group of graduate students to incorporate entrepreneurship as a component of their teaching and research, according to Dr. Cynthia Kehoe, the Academy’s Director of Research and Information, who leads the Graduate Scholars program.

“Entrepreneurship is inherently multidisciplinary,” Kehoe explained, “and doctoral researchers bring theoretical perspectives from disciplines as diverse as management, economics, psychology, geography and many other fields.  As the future professoriate, graduate students have the potential to shape entrepreneurship in dynamic and innovative ways.  The University of Illinois is famed for its researchers, and our goal with the Graduate Scholars Program is to bring that reputation to bear on entrepreneurship as a field of study, and to support these young scholars as they begin that process.”

A list of the 2006-07 Academy Graduate Scholars, their home schools and departments, appears below.  For more information, including abstracts of the winning proposals, please visit the graduate scholars page

• Meredith Blumthal, Agricultural & Consumer Economics
• M. Teresa Cardador, Business Administration/Organizational Development
• Donovan Finn, Regional Planning
• M. Cameron Jones, Library & Information Science
• Aleksandrs Kalnins, Medicine
• Janet Magree, Human Resource Education
• Staci Provezis, Educational Organization & Leadership
• Brent Ross, Agricultural & Consumer Economics
• Aleksan Shanoyan, Agricultural & Consumer Economics
• Renata Sheppard, Dance
• Tod Treat, Human Resource Education
• Ugur Uygur, Business Administration
• Aleksandrs Kalnins, Medicine
• Janet Magree, Human Resource Education