SIFE gets creative

“Eastern student wins $1,200 through online Wall Street game,” could very well be a headline next April as the SIFE Club has started the Eastern University Wall Street game as one of their many projects this semester.

Students in Free Enterprise is both a club and class that focuses on activities and events suitable to the business and business-related majors.

SIFE is an international group that has groups on college campuses with the purpose of doing projects and going to competitions.

Eastern’s own chapter of SIFE is making quite a name for itself this year as they strive to change the face of Eastern’s business department.

“We are trying to be more active and get the students to bond as a business department,” said junior Susie Gibble, vice-president of SIFE. “We are looking to get Eastern out in the business community.”

One way they hope to do this is through the Wall Street game, which is an online stock market game that started in November and will run to April 1. The students involved have a chance to win over $1,000. The mission of the SIFE organization is to do projects that incorporate five categories: success skills, business ethics, market economics, financial literacy and entrepreneurship.

This semester Eastern’s SIFE has held a resumé seminar, bringing in a speaker from Northwestern Mutual. They have also continued their participation with the West Philadelphia Alliance for Children, which they have been involved in since 2004.

“We are continuing WEPAC, where we go into the city and teach, usually middle-schoolers, about entrepreneurship,” Gibble said. “We are really starting to develop relationships with them.”

Eastern’s chapter of SIFE is not as focused on the requirements of the national organization and competition, but on fulfilling their own goals.

“We try to keep our core Eastern University values,” said Dr. Socci, professor for the SIFE class and head of the business department. “We do things a little differently; we put our Christian criteria first before the SIFE criteria.”

SIFE is not only focusing on helping those in need close by, but is also making plans to reach out globally.

“We are working with Opportunity International to possibly send students to Rwanda to go and evaluate the concept of micro-loans,” Socci said. “We would help OI do this and come back to raise awareness for micro-loans.”

With a focus of reaching people for Christ, SIFE is more than just a group interested in business.

“At Eastern we are about faith, reason and justice, we do a lot of the justice stuff,” Socci said. “For me it’s the amount of people we are able to touch and help … and that at the end they can say we were Christians.”