Temple University was ranked eighth for undergraduate programs and 12th for graduate programs by Entrepreneur magazine and the Princeton Review following a survey of more than 900 schools across the United States.

Since Entrepreneur magazine started its ranking surveys five years ago, Temple University, through its Fox School of Business, has remained the only school from the Philadelphia region to be included each year.

In the September issue of Fortune Small Business magazine, Temple was named a Top 25 school for undergraduate programs in entrepreneurship. Only one other school in the state, the University of Pennsylvania, was included.

This month, Temple was included in U.S. News & World Report’s “America’s Best Colleges 2008 for entrepreneurship/entrepreneurial studies,” an undergraduate ranking.

Temple’s entrepreneurship program is housed at the university’s Fox School of Business. “It’s rewarding to see our entrepreneurship programs recognized nationally in the company of prestigious schools,” said M. Moshe Porat, dean of the Fox School.

“Entrepreneurial thinking is a cornerstone of Temple, and our programs continue to expand and strengthen each year in both the academic and the applied sectors. Our mission is for students to think and act like entrepreneurs no matter where their career paths take them,” he added.

Temple’s entrepreneurship program includes interdisciplinary educational opportunities, internships with new and growing ventures, intensive mentoring and coaching, annual idea generation and business plan competitions, workshops and seminars, community outreach and annual conferences in social, global, women’s and industry-specific entrepreneurship.

Explained Chris Pavlides, executive director of the university’s Innovation and Entrepreneurship Institute, “We take a personal, hands-on approach to entrepreneurship. At Temple, students are empowered to start their own businesses, then encouraged, incubated and supported as they progress through revenue generation, sustainability and fast-track growth.”

Currently, Temple offers an entrepreneurship major in its Fox School of Business as well as an entrepreneurship minor. At the undergraduate level, certificate programs in non-business disciplines have been successfully piloted at the College of Engineering, College of Science and Technology and College of Health Professions. The certificate is being formalized and will soon be rolled out to all schools.

This year, at the graduate level, several new courses were introduced: “Entrepreneurship in the Life Sciences,” “Management of Innovation in Technology” and “Social Entrepreneurship.” These courses were created in preparation for an MBA concentration in entrepreneurship that is nearing its launch.

Temple University’s Fox School of Business is the largest, most comprehensive business school in the greater Philadelphia region and among the largest in the world, with more than 6,000 students, 150 full-time faculty members and 51,000 alumni.

For the third consecutive year, the Financial Times ranked the Fox School’s MBA among the Top 10 programs in the U.S. for “Value for Money” and as one of the Top 10 programs among public urban universities in the U.S. This year, Financial Times also cited the Fox MBA in the top 50 in the U.S. for its three-year average ranking, and The Economist ranked the Fox MBA program among the top programs globally and among the top 50 programs in the nation. U.S. News & World Report ranked Fox School’s undergraduate Risk, Management and Insurance program and its undergraduate International Business program in the Top 10 in the U.S. The Fox School of Business is accredited by AACSB International (the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business). For more information, visit www.fox.temple.edu