Two of Ball State University's graduate level programs - secondary education and entrepreneurship - made the list of America's Best Graduate Schools 2007, from U.S. News and World Reports.
The entrepreneurship program is ranked 25th, up one from 2006, and the secondary education program is ranked, for the first time, as 55th. The entrepreneurship program has ranked in the top 30 for the past six years.
"There are about 400 business schools in the country that are ranked, so to be in the top 25 is fabulous," Lynne Richardson, dean of the Miller College of Business, said. "It's really a credit to the faculty and staff in the entrepreneurial program."
Both the graduate and undergraduate level programs are nationally respected, she said, but the undergraduate is better known. While the undergraduate level focuses on creating a plan and developing a business, the masters program focuses on working with an existing business to improve it.
"We teach not just how to set up a new business but how to think entrepreneurially and intrapreneurially within an existing business, and I think that is one thing that really helps us stand out," Richardson said.
This is the first year Ball State has ranked in secondary education, partially because of an expansion of the list and partially to an increased effort to earn a ranking, Laurie Mullen, associate dean of Teachers College, said.
"This is the first time we really tried to - the first time we coordinated efforts to provide data," she said.
Departments and programs across the university collaborated to provide the information about the secondary education program to the U.S. News and World Report, she said, and this ranking is a tribute to all of them.
Earning rankings and awards has become important at Ball State, she said, and it is difficult to earn them in education. Besides the recognition this gives to an already strong program, the rankings Ball State received in the report will help attract more students to the university, she said.
"I think a lot of people look at that publication for places to go," Mullen said. "I think it's one tool students use when considering 'Where should I go - where should I spend my tuition money?'"
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