MOM’S THE WORD

Texas jewelry maven Kendra Scott honors moms with $100,000 'PTO' fund

Kendra Scott believes overworked moms deserve some PTO this year.

Photo courtesy of UT College Fine Arts

Some hardworking moms are going to hit the motherlode this Mother’s Day, thanks to Austin jewelry empress Kendra Scott.

Scott’s company has created a new initiative called the Kendra Scott Mother’s Day Personal Time Off Fund, which aims to give moms some much-deserved time off and bring attention to mothers’ many hours of unpaid labor. The initiative will gift 50 mothers from throughout the country with $2,000 each in honor of Mother’s Day and all the hard work they do.

Scott, a working mother herself, knows all too well that both stay-at-home moms and work-from-home moms help hold American homes together — and contribute nearly $11 trillion in unpaid labor each year, according to parenting site Motherly and other news organizations. And during the coronavirus pandemic, moms have shouldered even more obligations, and all without the benefit of traditional PTO.

With her company’s founding philosophy focusing on family, fashion, and philanthropy, it’s only natural that Scott would offer up the mother of all funding opportunities to everyday moms during Mother’s Day season.

“I’m a mom to three boys, as young as 7 and as old as 19. I’m also a founder, designer, and philanthropist — but being a mom has always come first,” Scott says. “Over the past year, the world has seen what I’ve always known to be true: Moms are superheroes, the ones that have held it all together, even through the most challenging times. And they deserve an acknowledgment of that this Mother’s Day.”

With Mother’s Day quickly approaching and coinciding with Mental Health Awareness Month in May, Scott says she hopes her new PTO Fund will help to cover childcare and other needs so mothers will feel empowered to take personal time off and focus on their mental health.

Mothers who want to get in on the fun (and fund) can post a picture or video of their “real-life mom moments,” tagging @kendrascott and #WearItLikeaMom on Instagram through April 22 for the chance at a $2,000 payout from the Kendra Scott Mother’s Day PTO Fund. Recipients will be announced the week of May 3.

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Best in class

2 Houston schools lead 2025 rankings for top entrepreneurship programs

Rice University, aerial, campus, buildings

Photo courtesy of Rice University

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Rice University and the University of Houston have topped The Princeton Review and Entrepreneur’s lists of the best graduate and undergraduate schools for entrepreneurship studies for 2025.

Neither school is a stranger to the prestigious national rankings.

Rice ranks first in the graduate category for the sixth consecutive year, and UH ranks first in the undergraduate category for the sixth consecutive year.

“At Rice Business, our students learn both inside and outside the classroom, drawing on our strong industry and community connections in Houston and beyond,” says Peter Rodriguez, dean of Rice’s Jones Graduate School of Business, in a release. “With small class sizes and tailored programs, we aim to equip our students with the skills to create new ventures and excel in a fast-changing business landscape.”

UH President Renu Khator praises the ranking as recognition for the impact of the Cyvia and Melvyn Wolff Center for Entrepreneurship at the C.T. Bauer College of Business.

“This program is a tremendous asset not only to the University of Houston and the Bauer College of Business, but also to the city of Houston, where entrepreneurship fuels both socioeconomic mobility and economic growth,” Khator says in a release. “We are proud to see the impact of this program reverberate throughout our community.”

Rankings for The Princeton Review and Entrepreneur’s 2025 lists were based on a survey of administrators at nearly 300 schools in the U.S., Canada, and Europe that offer entrepreneurship studies. Among the more than 40 factors used for the rankings were academic programs, faculty credentials, mentorship opportunities, and alumni entrepreneurship ventures.

The only other school in Texas that made either top-10 was the University of Texas at Austin.

The top 10 schools on the list of 50 best graduate schools for entrepreneurship studies in 2025 are:

1. Rice University
2. University of California-Los Angeles
3. University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
4. Washington University in St. Louis
5. Babson College
6. University of Washington
7. University of Texas at Austin
8. University of Virginia
9. Erasmus University Rotterdam in the Netherlands
10. University of South Florida

The top 10 schools on the list of 50 best undergraduate schools for entrepreneurship studies in 2025 are:

1. University of Houston
2. University of Texas at Austin
3. Babson College
4. University of Washington
5. Washington University in St. Louis
6. University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
7. University of Maryland-College Park
8. Miami University of Ohio
9. Tecnológico de Monterrey in Mexico
10. Northeastern University

The spirit of entrepreneurship is strong in Houston. The city recently ranked No. 7 on a list of the of the 10 best U.S. cities for entrepreneurs to live.

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The story originally was published on our sister site, InnovationMap.

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