Ohio University Professor and entrepreneurial leader Dr. Luke Pittaway has been named the Entrepreneurship Educator of the Year by the United States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship. The award is considered a lifetime achievement award.

Pittaway received the award during the association’s conference in Los Angeles on Jan. 14.

Pittaway is the Copeland Professor of Entrepreneurship, the chair of the University’s Management Department, and the former director of the Center for Entrepreneurship at Ohio University. He has a long history of leading or creating entrepreneurial programs during his stops at OHIO, Georgia Southern University, and three universities in the United Kingdom, the University of Surrey, Lancaster University and the University of Sheffield.

“To be named Entrepreneurship Educator of the Year is a true accolade,” Pittaway said. “Building excellent entrepreneurship programs, researching entrepreneurship education and learning and engaging in innovative practice has been the driving force for my professional life.”

Pittaway led the creation of a major in entrepreneurship and helped launch a certificate in entrepreneurship at Ohio University. He is in the middle of building dedicated infrastructure for entrepreneurship education on the Athens Campus, the C-Suite project. His efforts helped the University win the 2017 Deshpande Symposium Award for Excellence in Student Engagement in Entrepreneurship .

“Dr. Luke Pittaway embodies the spirit of entrepreneurship and student engagement and achievement we strive for at Ohio University,” Ohio University President M. Duane Nellis said. “His efforts with the Center for Entrepreneurship, and to develop student entrepreneurial leaders, are a crucial part of the excellence of the program, one of the best in the nation.”

Pittaway helped create new classes in hospitality entrepreneurship at the University of Surrey, launch the Institute for Entrepreneurship and Enterprise Development at Lancaster University, and found the Center for Regional Economic and Enterprise Development at the University of Sheffield. He then founded the Center for Entrepreneurial Learning and Leadership at Georgia Southern University before coming to Ohio University four years ago. In that time, OHIO’s Center for Entrepreneurship has won multiple national awards, including the Deshpande honor and USASBE’s 2015 Outstanding Emerging Entrepreneurship Program award.

“When Professor Pittaway joined our Center for Entrepreneurship, he immediately recognized the national uniqueness and importance of the partnership between the College of Business and the Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Affairs as its founding colleges,” said Lynn Gellermann, executive director of TechGROWTH Ohio and Center for Entrepreneurship. “Luke has provided our Center with critical academic leadership and experience necessary for collaborative partnership building across campus.”

The USASBE nomination indicates that Pittaway is recognized as a worldwide authority on entrepreneurship education and entrepreneurial learning, invited to be a keynote speaker at conferences around the world, including in Sweden, Denmark, Finland, the U.K., Taiwan and Hungary. He has assisted the development of entrepreneurship programs at Swansea University in Wales, the University of Pecs, and the University of Botswana. He has also written extensively about entrepreneurship education and learning, including 24 journal papers and nine book chapters, along with editing a book.

“Luke’s experience in creating entrepreneurship programming across various disciplines has been invaluable to Ohio University,” said Hugh Sherman, dean of OHIO’s College of Business. “He’s been able to work with faculty in nearly every college across campus to take entrepreneurship beyond the walls of Copeland Hall into the University’s engineering, fine arts, and public administration classrooms.”

The USASBE Entrepreneurship Educator of the Year award is given to individuals who have provided distinguished leadership over a number of years in the field of entrepreneurship education. Winners typically have contributed substantive advances to the way scholars think about and approach entrepreneurship teaching and learning, including significant contributions to curriculum design, course development, teaching methodologies, and pedagogical tools and approaches. They should be noted for excellence in the classroom. Consideration is given to individual’s reputation for mentoring and working with students. Pittaway also won USASBE’s Ray Smilor Volunteer of the Year in 2017, among other awards .