UA Little Rock Welcomes New Management Professor to Lead Entrepreneurship Classes

The University of Arkansas at Little Rock has appointed Dr. April Sledge as its newest management professor, bringing her expertise in entrepreneurship to the School of Business.

Sledge, a new assistant professor of management from Canton, Georgia, will teach a series of entrepreneurship courses at UA Little Rock, equipping students with the skills and knowledge to launch and grow successful businesses.

"I am very excited to join UA Little Rock," Sledge said. "The university has a unique learning environment for students interested in entrepreneurship, especially with all of the small businesses and startups located in or near Little Rock. The faculty in the School of Business has been supportive in getting me connected with all the great business leaders and entrepreneurs in the city who want to provide students with a real-world learning experience."

Sledge has been interested in business and entrepreneurship for a long time. For her, the key to becoming an entrepreneur is finding a problem that needs to be solved and coming up with a good solution. That is how she started her first business in college, a lawn care service company geared toward people who lived in the mountains who could no longer take care of their lawns. She later ran a successful real estate photography business, opening it when there were only three other real estate photographers in Atlanta. She and her husband bought and operated a small family farm during the COVID-19 pandemic at a time when people sought fresh, local sources of produce and meat. It's advice she often shares in her classes.

"My advice for someone who wants to be an entrepreneur is to keep your eyes and ears open," Sledge said. "We are constantly looking and listening for problems to solve. That is where great entrepreneurs come from. You need to keep your eyes and ears open to look for problems daily. Look for a problem and how to solve it."

At UA Little Rock, Sledge is teaching Venture Management and Decision Making and Entrepreneurial Perspectives classes this fall. She is especially looking forward to teaching a Creativity and Innovation class in the spring 2025 semester, which is a cross-disciplinarity entrepreneurship class open to all students with the goal to get them thinking like entrepreneurs.

"The class is really going to get individuals thinking about how to identify problems in their day-to-day life and then go through the process of solving that problem," Sledge said. "It gets students into the mindset of an entrepreneur. If I am a nurse who has a problem getting an IV into a patient, there may be a lot of other nurses who have this problem and need a solution. I want to spark a way of thinking that helps the students understand how to be entrepreneurs. I want to teach students how to find creative, innovative ideas and how to move forward with them. Even if they are not opening a business, being able to think like an entrepreneur will help them succeed in life."

Prior to UA Little Rock, Sledge worked as an instructor of management and entrepreneurship at Kennesaw State University, where she taught entrepreneurial thinking, marketing for entrepreneurs, and creativity and innovation. She also worked as the Workforce Opportunity for Rural Communities (WORC) grant program coordinator at the University of North Georgia.

Sledge earned her bachelor's degree in art marketing, a Master of Business Administration, and a graduate certificate in entrepreneurship and innovation, all from the University of North Georgia, as well as a Ph.D. in Business Administration from Kennesaw State University.