Market economics, simply defined, is money changing hands; but for a group of students meeting in a second-floor CEBA classroom, their hands are changing the world.
Students in Free Enterprise is a national organization active on more than 1,200 college and university campuses in 31 countries. The Center for Student Leadership and Involvement granted the LSU chapter official organization status last semester.
The organization’s purpose is to teach principles of market economics, entrepreneurship, business ethics and personal finance, SIFE’s Web site stated.
Andrea Sebastien, SIFE president, said members work as teams to design innovative, service-learning projects to educate people on the local level, especially the University and youth community within the city.
The teaching philosophy underlying SIFE appropriates the adage, “Give me a fish, I eat for a day; teach me to fish, and I eat for a lifetime.”
The projects must meet educational criteria outlined by the SIFE handbook.
For example, SIFE team members visited Baton Rouge High School for Business Ethics Month. The team gave a lecture and played “Ethical Jeopardy” as a tool for educating the students about ethical business.
Criteria for effective teaching programs include demonstrating how free markets work in the global economy, how entrepreneurs succeed by filling a market need and how businesses practice in an ethical and socially responsible way.
The “Double Oral Auction,” another game the team plans to use as an educational tool, is the classic example teachers use to introduce ideas of supply and demand, said Richard Stahl, Sam M. Walton Free Enterprise Fellow.
In the game, a group of people is divided into two categories, in which one group is the buyer and one group is the seller of a fictitious product. If the game is set up correctly, it will demonstrate how the market determines prices, Stahl said.
SIFE team members are preparing for the nationwide competitions at the end of March.
Sebastien, who won first place as a member of the LSU-Eunice team in the two-year division, said the judges determine winners based on how well the team fulfilled educational criteria.
First-place winners receive cash prizes of $4,000. Any team that ranks in the top 16 receives at least a $1,500 cash prize.
Some of the largest corporations in the United States sponsor the competitions, and their CEOs serve on SIFE’s board, Stahl said.
One of the benefits of joining SIFE is that corporations like Radio Shack, Wal-Mart, Sprint, Coca-Cola and Business Week hire directly from SIFE members, he said.
Although most of its 20 team members have business-oriented majors, SIFE accepts any majors, Sebastien said.
“No matter what your major is, business affects your life,” Sebastien said. “Everyone needs to have a basic understanding of free enterprise.”
Students interested in joining SIFE can read more at their Web site, www.sife.org.