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In completing its activities, a high school SAGE team is encouraged to work closely with a nearby community college or university. All colleges have active student organizations that receive credit for completing community service; some colleges even offer their students academic credit for completing “service-learning.” Service-learning activities provide college students with the opportunity to apply classroom theory with real-world business experience. Also, many students majoring in business may want to start their own non-profit enterprises someday, or work in the non-profit sector. By volunteering their time to SAGE high schools in their area, they can get a better idea if the non-profit world is for them.
We suggest that the high school students contact the dean of the nearest business college, or the director of their “community service-learning office.” The students should ask the dean or director if there are any student organizations that would be interested in becoming business consultants to their SAGE team. Example student organizations at the college level include the Marketing Association, Delta Sigma Pi, the Finance Association, Human Resource and Management Association (HRMA), SIFE, and Beta Alpha Psi (an honorary accounting and information systems society).
While SAGE strongly encourages a team to seek and enlist local college students, there is a fallback if college students are not available: SAGE has consultants and mentors available by e-mail. Contact SAGE for more information.
In order to give high school SAGE teams an extra incentive to seek out assistance from their nearby college, we have built in a SAGE judging criterion specifically for this purpose. The criterion reads:
In their activities, how effective were the students in utilizing at least one or two college “consultants/mentors” from a nearby college or university to help them identify, deliver, assess and present their activities?