Building a No. 1 national program doesn’t happen alone.
For eight consecutive years, the Cyvia and Melvyn Wolff Center for Entrepreneurship has held the top spot on The Princeton Review’s undergraduate entrepreneurship ranking, beating its own record.
So, what sets the Wolff Center apart?
Read about the eight areas where the program is making the biggest impact, and the people behind it all.
Students
At the visual forefront of the Wolff Center are the 28-36 students in each elite cohort.
Often, these entrepreneurship majors enter the prestigious program with their own business, or a conceptualized idea for one. Their businesses span across industries, often aligning with their own interests, ranging from the arts to tech.
Despite their differences, students share one commonality: determination.
This semester, senior Dylann Hearn tested the boundaries by hosting an on campus fall market to fundraise for her intellectual property team. With two weeks and a $5 budget, the student team brought 20 vendors to the University of Houston and raised $5,000. Hearn believes assignments like this benefit not just the students in the program, but the school as a whole.
“Markets like this incentivize students to spend more time on campus and embraces a supportive culture,” she said. “It strengthens the community and adds the fun aspect of letting students do a little shopping between classes.”
Last spring, senior Rowan Kaul brought his vision of supporting the startup ecosystem to life by hosting the first Wolff Center Career Fair.
The event brought 25 Texas startups with 100 employees or less to campus.
“Students are able to build good relationships with a lot of companies because they are small and niche,” he said. “That’s going to help them later down the line when they’re getting interviewed to hopefully land a role.”
Alumni
Over the years, graduates from the Wolff Center have applied their entrepreneurship education across the globe, launching and scaling their own businesses.
Houston restaurateur Brooks Bassler graduated from Bauer’s entrepreneurship program in 2002. Just a few years after, he launched BB’s Tex-Orleans, a beloved restaurant chain with more than 10 locations in southeast Texas.
“As soon as I got into the business school, I found the entrepreneurship program and fell in love with everything that it represented,” Bassler said.
Recent alumni, like 2024 graduate Gillian Fisher, have also found success using what they learned at the Wolff Center.
Fisher solidified her passion for art in high school when she worked at a pottery business, but never thought she could make a career out of it. After her experience as a Wolff Center student, she felt empowered to take a chance on her dreams.
“It was cool to be surrounded by a lot of like-minded people and seeing your classmates actually going out there doing what they put their minds to,” Fisher said.
In the two years since graduating, Fisher founded Keep Joy Studio, where she sells her kiln-fired custom ceramic pottery.
Faculty
As a trailblazer in entrepreneurship education, Wolff Center faculty have spent years teaching business principles from an untraditional lens.
Led by Executive Director and Professor of Practice David Cook, students are taught to be good entrepreneurs by being good people. Every student in the program is pushed to evaluate their own dreams and goals while taking Cook’s “Purpose” and “Leadership” courses.
“Let us know your dreams,” Cook said. “Whatever it is, if you come here, we’ll propel you out into that future. If you come in not knowing what you want to do, we’ll help you figure it out. The point is that WCE is hard, but finding your purpose is really important.”
Lecturer Keith Rassin also encourages business students to learn more about technical innovations in his course on intellectual property. Throughout the class, students work with their own technologies and ideas and are tasked with pitching business ideas that are centered around them.
Staff
Behind all of the Wolff Center’s initiatives is a devoted team of staff members.
Program managers and directors often are graduates of the program itself. Having experienced what it’s like to be a Wolff student, staff members are able to put themselves in students’ shoes and better address their concerns and needs. Further, each class is assigned to a program manager who stays with them until they graduate, getting to work with each student individually.
Director of Community Outreach Danna Ceron graduated from the Wolff Center in 2020. In the years since, she’s served as a bridge between the program and the greater community, giving cohort students the chance to serve others.
“We want to teach students that it’s valuable to sit down to hear someone’s story and help out those who are in need,” Ceron said.
Through the RED Labs Startup Accelerator, housed within the Wolff Center, staff expand entrepreneurial opportunities to students across UH.
Led by Managing Director Liana Gonzalez-Schulenberg and Program Manager Chris Steward, RED Labs often fills in educational gaps for non-business students starting ventures and expands opportunities to sell products and service on campus through seasonal markets.
“It’s incredible to see how many students at UH are interested in entrepreneurship,” Gonzalez-Schulenberg said. “Not everyone wants to start a technology startup. There are other types of businesses that you can learn a lot from and create a fulfilling life with.”
“I’m inspired every day by the confidence, ambition and determination of these remarkable young people, and at this stage in my life, there is nothing more rewarding than helping them recognize their potential, find their voice and realize what they have to offer the world.”
Community <a href="https://bitcomme.com/salesforce-inc-crm-position-trimmed-by-riverbridge-partners-llc/” title=”Salesforce Inc. $CRM Position Trimmed by Riverbridge Partners LLC”>Partners (Donors & Mentors)
When professionals donate their time or money to the Wolff Center, they join the tight-knit network of businesspeople in the program dedicated to spreading entrepreneurship.
For nearly two decades, benefactor Cyvia Wolff has not only funded scholarships, but provided students with formative experiences they wouldn’t have otherwise. Over the years, Wolff has traveled with students to New York, hosted them at her home and more.
Wolff remains an active part of the student experience by attending events like Wolffest, the annual student-run food festival.
“I come out every year,” Wolff said. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world. They’ve done something so different, and I think that’s what’s so exciting.”
Each student in the program is also matched with a mentor, dedicated to supporting them toward their professional and personal ambitions.
While supporting the students, mentors like Jessica Bolaños (BBA ’13) often say they get just as much back from spending time with the cohort as they put in.
“It’s such a unique place where all generations of entrepreneurs come, whether you’re a student or a senior in the game already,” she said. “We’re all learning from each other, so no matter what industry you’re in, everybody can come here and gain something.”
K-12 Students
Educational outreach related to the Wolff Center can start years prior to starting college.
Led by Ceron, the Wolff Center hosts entrepreneurship camps, competitions and experiences for elementary to high school students.
During the Spring 2026 semester, Ceron made regular visits to nearby Blackshear Elementary School, teaching a group of fifth graders how to develop, market and sell products. At this year’s Wolffest, those elementary students came to campus to run their own lemonade business.
“This goes back to the Wolff Center’s vision to inspire young entrepreneurs to think, lead and connect,” Ceron said. “We’re not only talking about it but helping students set up their own business here.”
During the summer, the program welcomed high school students to Bauer, giving them a condensed version of the Wolff Center experience by teaching them the same principles that cohort students receive.
In addition to speaking in front of a crowd, high school participants got face time with business leaders as they toured FIFA World Cup facilities.
Houston
Businesses amplified through initiatives like RED Labs tend to find longevity and grow in the Houston economy.
Houston Pilates Club, founded by RED Labs alumna Kristi Vo-Manh, strives to make exercise community-centric. Instead of a typical in-and-out workout experience, Houston Pilates Club partners with various local venues to combine exercise with pop-up vendors and a third space to meet new people.
“Going to Pilates myself and being an instructor, I felt there was a lack of a sense of community,” Vo-Manh said. “You go to class and leave afterwards. At Houston Pilates Club, you’re able to meet new people, be in a new environment and branch outside of the typical studio.”
Additionally, several Houston small businesses are given a space to sell their products at Wolffest each year.
The World
For years, the Wolff Center has maintained global relationships, expanding students’ perspectives of what business could look like. In 2016, a group of cohort students traveled to Japan to meet with international business leaders directly and expand their cross-cultural understanding.
A decade later, a group of 10 high schoolers from Japan came to Houston to learn about entrepreneurship at the Wolff Center.
“I love it here; you can do whatever you want,” student Hinako Sakuma said. “My favorite part of America is that everyone is different and will accept your ideas without judgments.”
Working closely with the Wayne B. Duddlesten Free Enterprise Institute, the Wolff Center offers entrepreneurial opportunities to University of Houston students and beyond.
Cook explained that the Wolff Center program takes the traditional concept of the American dream and expands it to value character and integrity in its students. While the center trains students to launch their own businesses, it also places an emphasis on making the world a better place.
