UNC Charlotte has established the RA Session II School of Entrepreneurship and Innovation inside its Belk College of Business, creating a new academic home for a Master of Science in Entrepreneurship degree that the university says will be the centerpiece of the school. The one-year, 30-credit-hour program is slated to begin enrolling students in fall 2026, pending one final sign-off from accreditors.
A New Degree With One Hurdle Left
According to Belk College of Business, the master's program will be offered at The Dubois Center at UNC Charlotte Center City, in collaboration with the Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation's CO-LAB space. The UNC Board of Governors approved the degree on Nov. 20, but the program is still pending approval by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges, the Belk College page notes. The school says the degree will be the only master's program of its kind offered by a public university in North Carolina, per the same account.
Charlotte Business Journal reports that the newly launched school sits within UNC Charlotte's Belk College of Business and that the forthcoming master's degree is its centerpiece, as described by The Business Journals.
Who Is Behind the Name
A Business North Carolina report states that R.A. Session II, a Dallas-based biotech investor, donated an undisclosed amount to help his alma mater establish the school that now bears his name — the RA Session II School of Entrepreneurship and Innovation. That account, per Business North Carolina, is the only reporting available on the gift, and further details about Session's career history or the circumstances surrounding the donation were not included.
Building on an Existing Entrepreneurship Infrastructure
The new school doesn't emerge in a vacuum. UNC Charlotte already runs a Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation based in the PORTAL building, which the university describes as a venture-development and customer-discovery unit affiliated with the school, according to UNC Charlotte Partnerships. That center's Ventureprise arm manages the university's National Science Foundation I-Corps Site, open to qualified researchers, and the center also organizes the annual Charlotte Venture Challenge business competition, the partnerships page notes.
That infrastructure itself has evolved in recent years. Back in December 2022, the university integrated Ventureprise, the Small Business and Technology Development Center, and its undergraduate and graduate entrepreneurship certificates into a single center, a restructuring that Inside UNC Charlotte reported took effect in January 2023, per Inside UNC Charlotte. That same reporting pointed to a 2021 LendingTree analysis that ranked the Charlotte market the No. 3 metro area in the country to start a business, underscoring why the region has leaned into entrepreneurship programming.
Why the Timing Makes Sense
The push into formal entrepreneurship education lines up with labor-market projections cited by Belk College of Business: entrepreneurship-related occupations in North Carolina are expected to grow 13.7% between 2024 and 2034, compared with 10.9% growth projected for overall state employment. UNC Charlotte isn't alone in building out a named school around a donor gift, either — the University of Delaware's Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics recently launched the Neil Book School of Innovation and Entrepreneurship after a gift from Neil and Sharon Book, with Choose Delaware reporting the school's board of trustees unanimously voted to establish it on May 11. That Delaware school is set to begin operations July 1, 2026, with inaugural programming and launch events planned for fall 2026, according to the same report.
For now, UNC Charlotte's timeline hinges on that last accreditation step. If the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges signs off as expected, the university's inaugural cohort of Master of Science in Entrepreneurship students could begin enrolling in fall 2026, with classes at The Dubois Center — giving Charlotte's growing startup scene a dedicated graduate pipeline housed within a public university for the first time, per Belk College's own framing of the program.
