SIFE Team Helps Businesses Get “Smart”
Kyle Stephens, SIFE member, in training for Google Places. (Photo by Hung Do Le '12)
“Spend-ready” customers are the ones business owners most desire.
Now, a dozen members of Keuka’s SIFE (Students in Free Enterprise) team are ready-and-available to assist local Chamber of Commerce members from Rochester to Ithaca better market their businesses with Google Places.
A web tool from the online search-engine giant, Google Places merges the basics of Google Maps and the phone book with a simple business listing. But everything from hours of operation, photos, videos, payment options, customer reviews and more can be added to the basic listing to create a web search tool powerful enough to tempt say, a thirsty traveler with a GPS-enabled smartphone, anxious to satisfy a caffeine craving at the nearest coffee shop.
Dan Stephens of Montour Falls studies a Google Places listing. (Photo by Hung Do Le '12)
That’s how it works for Dan Stephens, sophomore English education major from Montour Falls.
“Anytime I go someplace I’m not familiar with, such as when I go to the Adirondacks in the summer, or go out to eat or go shopping, [I] go on Google [with my phone] and type in ‘local pizza parlors,’ and find 10 different [listings.]” (more…)
SIFE Team Garners ‘Seed Money’ for Green Project
Senior Katelin Maxson led a team of SIFE students whose work on a sustainability project will bring "green" savings through motion-sensor technology to light switches like the one Rick Becker, maintenance manager, helps point out at Keuka's facilities plant.
The lights will soon dim in a campus building near you.
That’s what students working on the Keuka College CSI (Campus Sustainability Initiative) project are hoping. As members of Keuka’s Students In Free Enterprise (SIFE) team, those working on the environmentally friendly project created a “green” project recommending motion-sensor lighting technology be used more places on campus, such as in classrooms vacated near the end of the day, dorm hallways and other locales.
SIFE CSI Project Manager Katelin Maxson submitted a proposal in early September to the national SIFE organization, hoping to be chosen one of 15 elite teams across the Northeast to qualify for a grant award through SIFE’s sponsor, o.b® a brand of Johnson and Johnson. In keeping with the sponsor’s marketing theme, “women for less waste,” adding motion-sensor lighting to select classrooms and hallways would reduce energy usage and waste, according to SIFE team president Nick Simpson. The team learned Dec. 1 they had won a re-grant award.
“I’m on campus late most nights,” said Maxson,, a senior accounting major from Whitney Point. “I go by Hegeman [Hall] and see almost every classroom lit up with computer screens and lights on at 9 p.m., but no one’s been in those classrooms for several hours.”
Simpson called the $1,500 award “seed money” for the next phase of competition, when the SIFE team can present data showing what kind of impact the green initiatives had on the campus. Maxson explained that the CSI team will receive an initial $1,250 to launch the project, with the remaining $250 to come when the tracking data – actual net savings shown on utility bills – is submitted to the national SIFE organization, likely in April. Prizes earned at the next level of competition could garner the team an additional $1,000 – $2,500.
Debits, Credits, and Crime
By Nikki Treleaven ’11
Editor’s Note: This is the 6th in a series of stories saluting members of the Class of 2011. We asked division chairs for story ideas and they in turn contacted faculty members for ideas. We believe they came up with some terrific profiles.
Riccio gets a hug from Prof. Neil Siebenhar at Honors Convocation, after being named Outstanding Business Student with the highest GPA.
When Sara Riccio was younger, she liked reading books about serial killers.
“Crime really interested me,” she said.
The Queensberry resident will graduate with a double major in criminology and criminal justice and accounting.
“I chose to have a major in accounting because I wanted something practical, but criminal justice is my passion,” she said. (more…)
SIFE Team Again in Top 10% Nationwide
After delivering a 24-minute multimedia presentation – from memory – to the business executives judging a national competition, sweating it out in the corporate boardroom won’t be nearly so intimidating to Keuka College students.
Good thing too, because a number of corporate recruiters were paying close attention this past week as members of Keuka’s Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE) Team returned to Minneapolis, Minn., to compete for the title in SIFE’s two-day national competition, which runs concurrent with a job and career fair. Despite the pressure, Keuka’s team finished third of eight teams in its league, one of 20 leagues competing for recognition in professional presentation skills as well as success achieved operating in-depth community projects.
SIFE is an international, non-profit organization that works with leaders in business and higher education to mobilize students to make a difference in their communities while developing the skills to become socially responsible business leaders. There are 1,500 SIFE teams in 40 countries. Participating students form teams on their campuses and apply business concepts to develop outreach projects that improve the quality of life and standard of living for people in need.
In Minnesota, Keuka team members showcased the range of projects they completed during the 2010-11 academic year. Highlighted projects included a program to help the campus “go green,” a canned goods drive for a local food pantry, a game show curriculum to teach elementary kids financial skills, and donor marketing for the Finger Lakes Natural History and Cultural Museum Project, a local non-profit museum in development, to be built five miles from campus.
(more…)
SIFE Team Advances to 2011 Nationals
Keuka's 2011 SIFE exposition team at a March 18 practice.
After a stellar showing at regional competition in Ohio, Keuka’s Students In Free Enterprise (SIFE) exposition team, part of the 40-member SIFE club on campus, will advance to national competition in May in Minneapolis, Minn.
Representing the 40 campus members of SIFE in the regionals were: senior Molly McGuigan, junior Ryan Nichols, senior Kaitlyn Wood, junior Annie Mullen, junior Kyle Stephans, junior Morgan White and their audiovisual specialist, junior Case Hamilton.
Keuka’s team wowed the judges – about a dozen private-sector business executives – with their multimedia presentation of seven major projects completed in the last year. Keuka’s projects focus heavily on social services and the environment.
According to SIFE adviser and Division of Business and Management Chair Neil Siebenhar, Keuka’s team competed early Monday morning, March 21, in the first of four league competitions and went through the presentation without so much as a hitch. By lunchtime, some Keuka students had an idea they might fare well, thanks to a handful of favorable comments from judges. (more…)
SIFE Team Heads for Regionals
It’s a different kind of “Road to the Final Four.”
While NCAA basketball teams are battling on the hardwood, Keuka’s Students In Free Enterprise (SIFE) exposition team, part of the 40-member SIFE club on campus, hits the road Sunday for regional competition in Cleveland, Ohio Monday. At regionals, the six-member presentation team plus their audiovisual tech specialist will have just 24 crucial minutes to set up multimedia presentation equipment and impress the judges – private-sector business executives – with a formal retelling of the club’s accomplishments in the past academic year. Keuka will face other college teams in one of four leagues, competing for top spots in each league to advance to national competition in May in Minneapolis, Minn.
“With the [multimedia], it’s highly choreographed. Some of the teams are more sophisticated than the evening news – it’s just unbelievable,” said Neil Siebenhar, SIFE team adviser and chair of the Division of Business and Management.
SIFE is an international, non-profit organization that works with leaders in business and higher education to mobilize students to make a difference in their communities while developing the skills to become socially responsible business leaders. There are approximately 1,500 SIFE teams in some 40 countries. Participating students form clubs on their campuses and apply business concepts to develop outreach projects that improve the quality of life and standard of living for people in need.
SIFE is Marvelous in Minnesota
COO/Executive Vice President Carolanne Marquis (second from right), a member of the SIFE national advisory group, and SIFE presentation team members, from left: Anne Mullen, Courtney Karolinko, Brett Thoms, Kaitlyn Wood, Du Jiao (Jacqueline), and Ryan Ellingworth.
Competition at the Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE) National Exposition gets tougher every year.
Keuka College’s SIFE team was up to the challenge, turning in a stellar showing this week in Minneapolis, Minn.
Keuka, which qualified for the nationals by winning its eighth regional crown in nine years last month, finished second runner-up in its league.
Baring Their Soles
Ryan Ellingworth (l) and Annie Mullen take part in Keuka College's One Day Without Shoes
Imagine a life without shoes.
Many don’t have to—it’s part of their everyday life. In some developing countries, children must walk for miles to school, clean water, and medical assistance.
Keuka College students, faculty and staff discovered what it is like to go without footwear April 8 as part of One Day Without Shoes, a nationwide effort designed to spread awareness about the impact a simple pair of shoes can have on a child’s life.
SIFE Partners with PathStone
Members of the Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE) team discuss the small business program the organization is offering in conjunction with the PathStone Enterprise Center.
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A MAP for Entrepreneurial Success
SIFE will partner with the PathStone Enterprise Center to offer a 12-week program for entrepreneurs.
The PathStone Enterprise Center and the Keuka College Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE) team have joined forces to offer a 12-week Microenterprise Assistance Program (MAP) beginning Tuesday, March 9 at Keuka College.
The first class will run from 6 to 9 p.m. in Hegeman 109. Cost of the 12-week program is $50.
MAP provides eligible participants with education, technical assistance and access to business loans. The program, which addresses specific issues related to the startup or expansion of small businesses, will be taught by Jim Grillo, professor of business and former vice president at Alfred State College.
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