The 2007-2008 Academic Year marked the beginning of a new club on Southeastern University’s expanding campus: S.I.F.E. This club has recently returned from their regional competition where they were awarded “Rookie of the Year” and “1st Runner Up” in this region for the incredible projects they implemented within our community.

S.I.F.E. is the acronym for “Students In Free Enterprise.” It “is an international organization that mobilizes university students around the world to make a difference in their communities while developing the skills to become socially responsible business leaders” according to their website www.sife.org.

Although S.I.F.E. has just recently been added to Southeastern’s list of clubs, their impact on the school and the community of Lakeland can already be seen. This year alone they taught the elderly how to work with computers and the internet, taught third graders about the importance of the orange to Florida’s agriculture and hosted a 5K race to raise money for future projects.

“Next year we really want to expand on what we have done, do bigger projects and expand membership into other majors,” said Michael Hanlin, a Junior completing his business degree at Southeastern, who presented at the regional competition in Orlando this semester.

Annually S.I.F.E. clubs from colleges across the world come together to compete in regional, national, and world competitions. A team from each school presents their club’s projects from the year in front of a panel of business leaders who serve as judges for the competition. Teams are rewarded based upon the success of their projects and the professionalism of their presentation. In this way they are motivated to constantly improve their projects by competing with other schools.