Professor honored for entrepreneurial excellence
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Dr. Michael Morris received the inaugural Schulze Entrepreneurship Educator of the Year Award at the Entrepreneur & Innovation Exchange annual conference on Sept. 9-10 at the Schulze School of Entrepreneurship at the University of St. Thomas in Minneapolis.
The annual award, named for Best Buy Founder Dick Schulze, honors outstanding teachers in the field of entrepreneurship. Dr. Heidi Neck, the Jeffry A. Timmons Professor of Entrepreneurship at Babson College (Mass.), also received the honor, which includes a $15,000 grant.
“We are very happy to honor two of the leading educators in entrepreneurship for their outstanding contributions to entrepreneurship education,” Schulze said. “Dr. Morris is one of the preeminent entrepreneurship program builders in the country and Dr. Neck continues to push the leading edge of entrepreneurship education in the classroom. The Schulze Family Foundation is proud to recognize these inaugural winners for the impact they have on entrepreneurship education.”
Dr. Morris, the George and Lisa Etheridge Professor of Entrepreneurship in the Warrington College of Business, is a pioneer in curricular innovation and a leader in high-impact experiential engagement with the entrepreneurial community.
“It is so humbling to receive such a special recognition, especially for doing something that I love to do: Sharing the power and possibilities of entrepreneurship,” Dr. Morris said.
Since his arrival at Warrington in 2013, Dr. Morris has helped implement dynamic experiential learning programs for entrepreneurial-minded students at UF including:
- Entrepreneurship & Empowerment: Students, working as consultants, visit entrepreneurs in Haiti and South Africa and assist them with their ventures.
- Veterans Entrepreneurship Program: A three-phase program that provides practical training on how to build and maintain ventures. The program is offered free of charge to qualified veterans.
- Experiential Classroom: A three-day clinic designed for faculty about effectively teaching entrepreneurship.
Professor Morris, a former Fulbright Scholar, has been routinely recognized for his innovative programs and entrepreneurial success. He was named Entrepreneurship Educator of the Year by the United States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship (USASBE) in 2012, and received the Leavey Award for Excellence in Private Enterprise Education from the Freedoms Foundation in 2011. He was named one of the top 20 entrepreneurship professors in the United States by Fortune Small Business, and was inducted as a 21st Century Entrepreneurship Research Fellow by the Global Consortium of Entrepreneurship Centers. He has authored eleven books and more than 130 peer-reviewed academic articles.
Dr. Morris has a Ph.D. in Marketing from Virginia Tech University (1983), and an MBA (1978), Master of Science in Economics (1976) and Bachelor of Arts in Economics (1975) all from Wright State University (Ohio).
