SIFE Wins 10th Straight Regional Competition
The Alma College Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE) team claimed its 10th consecutive regional championship after presenting its yearlong community economic and business outreach projects to a panel of business leaders March 27-28 in Chicago.
The regional win qualifies the team to represent Alma College at the national SIFE competition in Minneapolis May 10-12. The national winner advances to the SIFE international competition in Malaysia in October.
Forty-one of the approximately 115 members of SIFE competed against teams representing colleges and universities throughout the Midwest, said Ron Lemmon, faculty advisor. Alma College will be one of 120 teams out of approximately 1,200 nationally competing at the nationals.
SIFE member Bill McHenry talks with villagers in Uganda.
Alma’s SIFE team presented 12 community-outreach projects to panel of Fortune 500 executives, said Lemmon. They included teaching ethics and entrepreneurship skills to juveniles housed at the Saginaw Juvenile Detention Center and sending students to Uganda to create a sustainable business plan for 1,360 villagers in Muko.
“These projects encompassed more than 3,900 hours of volunteer service,” said Lemmon. “The students focused on teaching the principles of the free enterprise system and educating the local community and our campus on the merits of entrepreneurship, ethics, environmental sustainability, financial literacy, market economics, and success skills.”
SIFE is an international non-profit organization active on more than 1,600 college and university campuses in 48 countries. At regional and national competitions, SIFE teams present the results of their educational outreach projects and compete to determine which team was most successful at creating economic opportunity for others. Projects and presentation skills are judged by business executives, who base their decisions on creativity, innovation and effectiveness.
The mission of Alma College SIFE is “to raise the standard of living in mid-Michigan by teaching the principles of free enterprise through a variety of educational outreach programs developed and implemented by dedicated Alma College students,” said Lemmon.
Posted: Fri, April 1st, 2011 at 4:08PM
