Scholarship established to honor College of Business Dean Ray Eldridge
The leadership and legacy of Ray Eldridge, dean of Lipscomb University’s College of Business, will impact students for years to come thanks to a new scholarship in his honor.
Kim Chaudoin |
Updated on April 9, 2024, to reflect progress made toward fundraising goal.
The Ray Eldridge Business Encouragement Scholarship was recently established by Jody Venkatesan, a member of the College of Business Dean’s Advisory Board, and his wife, Louise, in honor of Eldridge’s contributions to the college and the university community as a whole. The scholarship fund recently achieved endowment status, thanks to the gift from the Venkatesans and other members of the College of Business Dean's Advisory Board. This scholarship provides financial assistance to undergraduate students pursuing degrees within the College of Business, empowering them to achieve their academic and professional goals.
“The reason we chose to honor Ray is because he is a champion for students. He is caring and recognizes the importance of Jesus in people's lives,” said Venkatesan, managing member, Platinum Business Services. “Ray is a dedicated servant who is constantly trying to move programs forward for the students in a positive way. I can’t think of anybody more important to the College of Business today than Ray because of his leadership that has driven success. He's a champion leader who has a caring way.”
“There is a great need to support students, and this scholarship does that,” he continued. “It is for something bigger than us. I believe helping students financially is biblical stewardship, and it makes a difference in those lives. Our goal is to provide meaningful support to future generations of business students.”
Eldridge, a distinguished leader in business education with a steadfast commitment to academic excellence and student success, has served as the dean of Lipscomb University's College of Business since 2014. A hallmark of his leadership has been establishing core values for the college and a mission-minded approach to business education.
“It is an honor that Jody did this and has a heart for supporting students,” said Eldridge. “He likes what we are doing in the College of Business. We have built a quality program, now we want to make sure any student who wants to attend Lipscomb and study business can do that. So that is why scholarships like this one are so helpful and so important.”
Under Eldridge’s visionary leadership, the College of Business has experienced tremendous growth, earning recognition as one of the top business schools in the nation. He has led the college to a steady increase in enrollment in its 12 undergraduate and six graduate programs and to many important accomplishments, including being ranked in the top 50 undergraduate programs in the nation for eight consecutive years by Poets&Quants and being named a Business Program of Distinction. In 2020 Poets&Quants selected the College of Business as one of ten undergraduate business schools in the nation to watch and ranked Lipscomb as the top undergraduate business program in Tennessee. Last spring, the publication named two students among the top 100 students in the Best & Brightest Class of 2023. Also last year, the undergraduate business program obtained the U.S. News Best Business School status, listed as third in Tennessee behind only Vanderbilt University and the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. In addition, Lipscomb’s MBA program acquired its first U.S. News ranking, placing among the top five business schools in Tennessee, and in 2023 Niche.com ranked Lipscomb’s business program No. 1 and No. 3 in accounting in Tennessee.
Eldridge also led the effort to make Lipscomb the fourth university in the nation to achieve ACBSP Accounting specialization accreditation and guided the college to earn accreditation from AACSB International (AACSB), an honor only 6% of all business schools in the world achieve. He launched the bold Business and Mission program and more recently the Purposeful Business initiative. In addition, to support students Eldridge founded an Office of Student Support and a Center for Professional Development & Engagement and the Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, which serves the entire university.
Before joining the Lipscomb faculty in 2008, Eldridge completed more than 20 years as a U.S. Army officer. A logistics expert, Eldridge’s career with the Army included multiple deployments around the world; commanding soldiers at the battalion, company and platoon level; providing planning and support for worldwide military and humanitarian operations for logistics including for more than 15,000 security personnel at the 1996 Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta; and supervising a multi-million-dollar NATO production facility and depot which included an international European Union (EU) workforce. He has also served in professorships at Syracuse University and Freed-Hardeman University, where he was dean of Freed-Hardeman’s School of Business for three years.
Eldridge has received numerous academic and professional recognitions for his work in Organizational Excellence by serving as an AACSB peer review team member and mentor, on the Board of Commissioners for ACBSP, a national accrediting body for business education; serving on the board of examiners for the Baldrige National Quality Award; and being selected as a senior examiner for the Tennessee Center for Performance Excellence, among numerous others. He is an alumnus of the Leadership Franklin and Leadership Middle Tennessee programs, a former member of the Better Business Bureau of Middle Tennessee board, a member of the Fort Campbell Retired Soldier Advisory Board and was recently selected to the Franklin Civil War Historical Commission. His education includes a doctorate, two master’s degrees, a diploma from the U.S. Army Command & General Staff College, and an undergraduate degree from The Citadel.
To contribute to the Ray Eldridge Business Encouragement Scholarship, click here and type in “Ray Eldridge” in the search box and the name of the scholarship will populate.