La Royce Batchelor is the first recipient of the Tom and Gayle Clifford Entrepreneur Fellowship at UND. Batchelor is an alum of UND’s communications program and an instructor in the College of Business and Public Administration’s (CoBPA’s) entrepreneurship program. She is completing a Ph.D. in Educational Leadership with a focus in entrepreneurship.

Batchelor teaches innovation and entrepreneurial communication in the CoBPA Entrepreneurship Department and also works at the Center for Innovation Foundation, aiding primarily with fund raising, communication, and student engagement in entrepreneurship. Her research focuses on the pedagogy of classroom management and student engagement; she also conducts research on innovation and creativity.

Batchelor is a 1991 graduate of UND in speech and received a Master of Arts degree in political and cultural communication in 1993. She has been teaching for 20 years, including the last 15 at Red River College in Winnipeg.

Batchelor also teaches Shotokan Karate for the UND Karate Club. She is an alum of Kappa Alpha Theta and plans to be an advisor to the group after completing her Ph.D. She has started four businesses since she was a teenager, showing her entrepreneur spirit.

About the Tom and Gayle Clifford Entrepreneur Fellowship

The Tom and Gayle Clifford Entrepreneur Fellowship was established by a gift from Tom and Gayle Clifford in 2009 to the UND Center for Innovation Foundation. The endowment was set up to support up and coming entrepreneur-minded leaders on campus who wish to build innovative programs on campus. Tom Clifford--a Langdon, N.D., native, a decorated World War II veteran, and president of UND from 1971 to 1992--was well known to support campus entrepreneurs who are innovative, courageous, and have uncommon energy. Clifford supported the launch of the UND Center for Innovation.

-- Juan Miguel Pedraza, writer/editor, University Relations, 777-6571, juan.pedraza@email.und.edu.

http://www2.und.edu/our/uletter/?p=16493