Entrepreneurship Professor Wins SEC Faculty Achievement Award

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Carol Reeves

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. –The Southeastern Conference has announced that Carol Reeves, the Cecil & Gwendolyn Cupp Applied Professor in Entrepreneurship at the University of Arkansas, is the recipient of the university’s 2014 Faculty Achievement Award.

The award honors professors from SEC universities with outstanding records in teaching and scholarship who serve as role models for other faculty and students.

“The 2014 SEC Faculty Achievement Award winners are some of our nation’s most accomplished instructors, researchers and scholars,” said Jay Gogue, president of Auburn University and president of the SEC. “It is my great pleasure to preside over an intercollegiate athletics conference that not only recognizes their work, but strives to support it as well.”

SEC Faculty Achievement Award winners, one from each university, will receive a $5,000 honorarium and become his or her university’s nominee for the SEC Professor of the Year Award. The SEC Professor of the Year receives an additional $15,000 honorarium and will be recognized during the annual SEC Spring Banquet in May.

In addition to her faculty appointment in the Sam M. Walton College of Business, Reeves serves as associate vice provost for entrepreneurship at the University of Arkansas. In that role, Reeves promotes entrepreneurship and economic development in Northwest Arkansas and across the state. She works with faculty and students in all colleges at the University of Arkansas to encourage the start-up of new companies based on university research.

Under Reeves’ guidance, the university has fielded competitive graduate student teams at state, regional, national and international business plan competitions since 2002. During the past decade, students have won more than $2 million in cash at these competitions. 

“We were thrilled that Carol Reeves was selected as the University of Arkansas’ SEC Faculty Achievement Award recipient,” said Sharon Gaber, provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs. “Dr. Reeves is both well-known and respected for her outstanding work in developing nationally competitive collegiate business plan teams.”

Reeves advised or co-advised four of the six University of Arkansas teams who made the finals of the 2014 Donald W. Reynolds Governor’s Cup Collegiate Business Competition. The University of Arkansas has won the graduate division at the Governor’s Cup 11 consecutive years, and placed the top three teams in the graduate division in three of the last four years.

Also, teams in the entrepreneurship program in Walton College have won 17 national business plan competitions, two times more than the closest competitor.

Reeves has been an exceptional teacher. In 2010, she received the Arkansas Alumni Association’s Distinguished Faculty Achievement Award for Teaching. She was also selected for the University of Arkansas Teaching Academy in 2011.

“I’m very honored and flattered by this award,” Reeves said. “This recognition would not have been possible without the tremendous efforts of my students and those from the community who mentor them.”

The SEC Faculty Achievement and SEC Professor of the Year Awards were created in 2012 to honor and celebrate, at the conference level, university faculty and their achievements and contributions in scholarship, research and service.

Selected by a committee of SEC provosts, the SEC Faculty Achievement Awards and the SEC Professor of the Year Award are part of SECU, the academic initiative of the conference, which sponsors, supports and promotes collaborative higher education programs and activities involving administrators, faculty and students at its 14 member universities.

Previous SEC Faculty Achievement winners at the University Arkansas are Elliott West (2012), Distinguished Professor of history in the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences, and Greg Salamo (2013), Distinguished Professor of physics, also in the Fulbright College.

To be eligible, a professor must be a teacher or scholar at an SEC university; have achieved the rank of full professor at an SEC university; have a record of extraordinary teaching; and have a record of scholarship that is recognized nationally or internationally.