The Monroe College four-year SIFE (Students in Free Enterprise) Team was named Champion of the League 3 Regional Competition, held on Tuesday, March 29, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. As a result, the twenty-two member team, which is based on the college’s New Rochelle campus, will participate in the National SIFE Competition in Kansas City, Missouri to be held May 21-23. The team’s winning entry consisted of twenty-seven different projects they had worked on. In each, they used their educational skills and training to better the community. Their 24-minute multi-media presentation included an interactive video that the SIFE tech committee produced. The Monroe four-year team had been named runners-up at the competition in the previoustwo years. For Co-president Ayanna Henry, winning the championship this year was something special. “We worked tirelessly, not only on our projects, but also at making a strong, entertaining, and cogent presentation,” she said. “As good as it was, though, we think we can do better. And there’s no doubt that this experience will help us when we get to the nationals next month.” In evaluating the Monroe presentation and the effectiveness of the projects, one of the judges mentioned that this was one of the best they had ever seen. The SIFE team’s projectsare individually tailored to suit community needs and create economic opportunities for people in Westchester County, New York State, and by extension, the entire world. One successful project that the team developed this year is called The Multicultural Village. In this project, SIFE armed children from the New Rochelle Boys and Girls Club with global success skills. They taught about international commerce and ran job readiness workshops, including resume writing and mock interviews. In SIFE competitions, teams are evaluated on creativity and innovation, results of educational programs, and application of principles of free enterprise. Last year, the Monroe two year team won the National Competition and was featured on the Kellogg’s Corn Flakes box. Their Regional competition this year will be held on April 11th in White Plains, NY. SIFE is a non-profit organization that encourages the skills of leadership and teamwork by way of a cooperative relationship between higher education and business. SIFE has chapters at more than 800 colleges in the United States, and more than 1400 colleges in 33 countries. It makes connections between what is learned in the college classroom and real-world situations. |