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Regent SIFE Team Wins 6th Consecutive Regional Championship, Advances to Nationals April 9, 2008
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. - The Regent University SIFE team claimed victory as they won their sixth regional championship title at the SIFE Regional Competition held in Philadelphia, Pa. on April 8. Thirty-five SIFE teams, primarily from the northeast region of the U.S., competed in seven leagues at this event sponsored by the Campbell's Soup Company. Regent won the title over Eastern University, Montgomery College and University of Maryland Eastern Shore to advance to the SIFE National Competition in Chicago, Ill., May 13-15. Montgomery College also advanced. In the past, Regent has competed against other mid-Atlantic schools in Charlotte, N.C. However, due to a growing number of SIFE teams competing at that event, SIFE National Headquarters sought volunteers to switch venues. "As it turns out, Philadelphia is one hour's drive closer to Virginia Beach than Charlotte, so we gladly volunteered to switch venues and compete against schools we have never competed against before," said Dr. A. Gregory Stone, Regent SIFE faculty advisor. Regent's 24-minute presentation summarized its year-long community outreach projects including Pilot Produce, in which ninth graders at Norview High School grow and operate an organic produce business; Orphans Promise, which helps Ukrainian orphans gain education and skills training for success in the job market; Dinner Theater, which provided the community with a family-fun Christmas event; Biz4Kids, which provided financial knowledge and entrepreneurship training to at-risk kids at Norview High School; and the SIFE-MPAA Anti-Piracy Contest, which promoted legal downloading. The script and presentation, which includes an annual report, must address the six judging criteria of market economics, personal success, entrepreneurship, financial literacy, business ethics and sustainability. "Over the years, we have established a reputation for a very professional, well-polished presentation style. We combine photographs, video, testimonials and this year, included a video testimony from Virginia Congresswoman Thelma Drake," said Stone. Following the presentation, the panel of 15 judges comprised of business executives from companies such as Best Buy, Hershey's, Sherwin Williams, Unilever, Vanguard, Discover Financial Services, Waste Management, Wells Fargo and Walgreens took the full six-minute question and answer session to grill the Regent SIFE team. "We had the toughest round of questions and answers in the seven years we have competed," said Stone. "[The session] can be a deciding factor if there's a tie. This team did an extraordinarily good job of fielding the questions and answering them succinctly and precisely."
This year's Regent SIFE team consists of 16 student members from various Regent graduate and undergraduate programs and is under the guidance of Dr. A. Gregory Stone from the School of Global Leadership & Entrepreneurship (GLE) and Dr. Shauna Tonkin from the School of Education who serve as faculty advisors. This year's presenters were Regina Oakman, Jennifer Holland and Yuliya Paslavska from GLE and Hanisha Besant, Stefanie Proctor and Joseph Calandra from the School of Undergraduate Studies. Receiving constructive evaluation from the judges, Regent SIFE will now assess the judges' comments and retool the presentation to perfect it for the SIFE USA National Exposition & Competition in which they will compete against more than 180 other regional winners. If victorious, the team will join national SIFE team champions from 45 other countries in October for the World Cup competition in Singapore. Regent SIFE was established in 2001, and in those seven years, Regent SIFE has won six consecutive regional championships as well as Rookie of the Year in 2001.
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About SIFE SIFE is an international not-for-profit organization active on more than 1,400 university campuses in 48 countries. SIFE teams create economic opportunities in their communities by organizing outreach projects that focus on: market economics, entrepreneurship, success skills, financial literacy and business ethics. To learn more about Students In Free Enterprise, visit the Regent SIFE website at http://www.regent.edu/sife or contact the directors at sife@regent.edu. About Regent University Founded in 1978, Regent University has more than 4,000 students studying on its campus in Virginia Beach, Va., and online around the world. Regent offers bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees from a Christian perspective in fields including business, communication and the arts, divinity, education, government, law, leadership, and psychology and counseling. |
