Students Bring Business Ethics To Life
Members of the Alma College student organization Students in Free
Enterprise (SIFE) recently brought business ethics to the movies for a
group at the Saginaw County Juvenile Detention Center.
The college students presented four workshops on ethics using a movie
theater as the business model. The 46 participating youth in the
juvenile detention center, ranging in age from 10 to 17, were split
into groups and given a series of five scenarios regarding working at a
movie theater. The scenarios involved:
• Punching in early
• Finding a friend stealing candy
• Finding a friend sneaking into a movie
• Customer service
• Closing the theater poorly
They were given a series of three questions to answer:
• What do you do?
• Why do you do that?
• Who does it impact?
Teams were scored on correct answers, creativity and enthusiasm. At the
end, the highest scoring team was the first to pick its prizes, though
all teams received some kind of prize.
“It was good to be there as a role model; we were able to relate to the
groups,” said Alma College group chair Marcy Gilstad, a sophomore from
Midland.
Members of SIFE in spring 2008.
This
was the group’s second year running the project. Last year, the project
won third place in SIFE’s national Business Ethics Competition.
“Last year, we ran the program as though the youth were the CEO of
Nike, but the corporation model was hard for them to understand,” says
Gilstad. “This year we wanted to make the project more relevant and the
competitive edge helped. They were a great group — participating and
having a good time.”
The program was very well received by the juvenile center residents,
said Melissa Strong, director of the Saginaw County Juvenile Center.
"They were talking about it for several days after the SIFE group was
here,” said Strong. “It is not often they have an opportunity to
interact with positive, young professionals like the students from
SIFE. They were particularly excited about earning some prizes!"
The Alma College group also plans to make a computer game out of the
material used for the presentation, as well as host a seminar on
business ethics for graduating seniors with a panel of alumni.
Other members of the Alma College group included Howell sophomore Larry
Schlusler, Kimball junior William Warsinski, Ann Arbor freshman Rob
Armbruster and Haslett senior David Korte. SIFE members Bay City
freshman Jordan Bosco and Huntington Woods freshman Emily Adler also
assisted.
SIFE has grown to become one of Alma College’s most active student
organizations. An international non-profit organization active on more
than 1,400 college and university campuses in 48 countries, SIFE teams
create economic opportunity in their communities by organizing outreach
projects that focus on market economics, entrepreneurship, personal
financial success skills, and business ethics.
Posted: Fri, December 5th, 2008 at 5:12PM
