NO. 1 AGAIN

Cyvia Wolff reflects on the top-ranked Wolff Center for Entrepreneurship’s remarkable streak of success.

By Christiana Nielson

The Cyvia and Melvyn Wolff Center for Entrepreneurship, part of the University of Houston’s C. T. Bauer College of Business, continues its reign as the premier undergraduate entrepreneurship program in the U.S. It was once again awarded the prestigious designation as No. 1 program in 2023 by The Princeton Review and Entrepreneurship Magazine, marking its fourth consecutive year to earn the top spot (and seventh total). Since its renaming in 2007, the center has consistently secured a place among the top 10 programs.

According to Cyvia Wolff—who, along with her late husband, Melvyn, made the center’s work possible with their $13 million founding donation—the recognition comes with good reason; the scholarship opportunities, 500 mentors for 39 students and a track record of successful careers post-graduation are just a few.

Students from the program have created 1,640 businesses in the past 10 years. Simply put, the center elevates entrepreneurship education year over year through an immersive program and experiential learning—and produces a tangible result beyond its doors.

Entrepreneurship became important to the Wolffs after Melvyn, a University of Houston graduate, took over his family’s small furniture business, Star Furniture, and transformed it into one the most successful retail furniture companies in the country. It became part the Berkshire Hathaway portfolio in 1997.

“I would consider him an entrepreneur because of the way he reengineered the business and made it very successful,” Cyvia says. “That’s why Melvyn and I became interested in the program—he developed it, and we became the fertilizer.”

Cyvia credits David Cook, the center’s director, with turning their investment and vision into a wildly fruitful program. The students not only learn from their mentors in the Houston area but also visit well-known entrepreneurs across the country. They create business plans, raise money and have access to countless hands-on experiential learning opportunities. Cyvia even holds an annual dinner with some of the scholars.

“Some people like [Jeff] Bezos are set up for success no matter what,” she says, “but there are others who need some help along the way. This program is there to help you when you fail—and everybody fails. You know, Thomas Edison said he didn’t fail 10,000 times—he just learned 10,000 ways not to do it. The school is there to help you when you need it after you’ve graduated too. Many of the students come back to be mentors.”

Looking to the future in an increasingly unstable financial world, Cyvia believes entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship education are more advantageous than ever—the former providing real-world experience that students don’t get in many college courses, and the latter helping to stimulate the economy.

“Aside from the values that [the center] teaches, and aside from the knowledge it teaches, you learn to start an actual business within this program,” she says.

Many of those businesses that begin in the Cyvia and Melvyn Wolff Center for Entrepreneurship find true success out in the real world, a testament to both the Wolffs’ legacy and the power of entrepreneurship.