A team of UTM students and their professor captured honors during the recent Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE) Regional Competition in Memphis.

The UT Martin SIFE team was named Rookie Team of the Year, while Dr. Steve Jackson, holder of the Hendrix Chair of Excellence in Free Enterprise at UT Martin, has been named a Sam M. Walton Free Enterprise Fellow.

Active on more than 1,400 college and university campuses in 33 countries, SIFE encourages students to apply classroom learning to real-life situations, and to use their knowledge to better their communities through educational outreach projects.

Jackson serves as adviser for the UTM SIFE team. Under his direction, the team presented its educational outreach projects at the 2003 SIFE Regional Competition and Career Opportunity Fair, held April 1 in Memphis.

The UT Martin team won Rookie Team of the Year and a National Honorable Mention for a special competition dealing with entrepreneurial education.

The students presented their program to a panel of local and national business leaders and entrepreneurs who rated the overall effectiveness of each team’s efforts.

The team’s projects included Entrepreneur Day, held recently on the UT Martin campus, and their experiences teaching global economics and personal financial management to high school and UT Martin students.

“I am very proud of what this team accomplished in their rookie year,” Jackson said. “We completed three major projects and were able to compete in Memphis only having three months of activity. I look for great things from this team in the coming year.”

Regional champions named at 22 competitions held around the country will present their projects at the 2003 SIFE USA National Exposition, hosted by the Kansas City Business Community, May 11-13 in Missouri.

The national champion in the four-year division will travel to Frankfurt, Germany, to compete at SIFE World Cup 2003, October 12-14.

More than 400 Sam Walton Fellows nationwide train and motivate more than 30,000 SIFE Team members annually. The fellowship was created in 1990 by the Wal-Mart Foundation and is named for Samuel Moore Walton, founder and chairman of Wal-Mart Stores Inc.

“We are proud that the Walton family invited SIFE to use Mr. Walton's name to give the Free Enterprise Fellows a standard by which to lead and be recognized,” said Alvin Rohrs, president and CEO of SIFE. “The Sam M. Walton Fellows inspire their students and are America”s most effective teachers of free enterprise.”

Founded in 1975 and active on more than 1,400 college and university campuses in 33 countries, SIFE is a non-profit organization that works in partnership with business and higher education to provide students the opportunity to make a difference and to develop leadership, teamwork and communication skills through learning, practicing and teaching the principles of free enterprise.

For more information, contact Dr. Steve Jackson at ext.7228, or contact the SIFE Headquarters in Springfield, Mo., at 1-800-677-SIFE. Visit the SIFE Web site at http://www.SIFE.org.