A Message to the Rowan Community:

Regretfully we announce the departure of Drs. Eric Liguori and Susana Santos from Rowan’s School of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the end of the year. In a move to be closer to family, Drs. Liguori and Santos will be joining the Jim Moran College of Entrepreneurship at Florida State University.   

Since joining Rowan in the summer of 2017, Dr. Liguori has been a driving force behind Rowan's vision for entrepreneurship across the campus. When Dr. Liguori began there were 22 entrepreneurship majors and 2 minors. Today, there are 200 majors and 98 minors, making the entrepreneurship the fastest growing major, and the largest minor, in Rowan’s William G. Rohrer College of Business (RCB). Beyond enrollment growth, our entrepreneurship programs and center of excellence have earned numerous accolades under Dr. Liguori's leadership, including:

• Top 50 ranking by Princeton Review / Entrepreneur Magazine for three consecutive years
• 2022 AACSB Innovations that Inspire Award
• 2021 ICSB Entrepreneurship Center Global Impact Award
• 2019 AACSB Innovations that Inspire Award
• 2019 ICSB Entrepreneurship Education Excellence Award

Dr. Liguori led the development and launch of the School of Innovation and Entrepreneurship and has unquestionably helped establish Rowan as a leader in entrepreneurship education. Last year Dr. Liguori was named to ROI-NJ's Higher Education Influencers list (2022) and earlier this year he was recognized as the 2023 Entrepreneurship Educator of the Year by the U.S. Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship. He was also instrumental in raising meaningful financial support in support of our entrepreneurship programming, as well as in helping grow the Rowan Innovation Venture Fund from $5M to $25M. In addition to these leadership responsibilities, as the William G. Rohrer Chair of Entrepreneurship he has also contributed meaningfully to the RCB's scholarship output, having authored or co-authored more than 40 journal articles and 4 books since joining Rowan in 2017.  

As if losing one great member of the RCB faculty isn't regretful enough, we also bid farewell to Dr. Susana Santos. Dr. Santos joined our faculty in 2018 and has contributed to not just our entrepreneurship programs, but also the RCB and the Martinson Honors College in many meaningful ways. Dr. Santos helped launch and Co-Direct the Rowan Center for Responsible Leadership as well as developed the Responsible Leadership curriculum in our MBA program. She's been an engaged member of the honors college faculty, mentoring students and teaching classes to support their success. For five years she's served as the course coordinator for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, our largest and most popular interdisciplinary entrepreneurship course taken by students from majors all across campus. Since joining Rowan, she's published more than 30 journal articles. She has twice been recognized as the recipient of RCB's annual award for scholarship and has also won two New Jersey Bright Idea Awards for her research. She's served as the Entrepreneurship minor advisor for nearly three years, and the aforementioned growth in this minor is rightfully credited to her tireless work supporting students from all majors across campus as they seek to add an entrepreneurship offering to their program of study. 

Both Dr. Liguori and Dr. Santos have been strong contributors to the Rowan community and will be missed. Please join us in thanking them for all they have done for the university and wishing them continued success in their new roles at FSU, where Dr. Liguori will serve as Associate Dean for Research and External Relations and Dr. Santos as Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship.  

- Rowan University School of Innovation and Entrepreneurship