Enterprise Marathon Brings High Schoolers, College Students to Campus for Competition

February 26, 2016

The fourth-annual Free Enterprise Marathon will be hosted at SUNY Plattsburgh Friday, March 4 beginning at 8:30 a.m. in the Angell College Center.

Students from 11 colleges and five North Country high schools will spend the day competing and collaborating as teams in creativity and innovation contests. Both groups of students will be presented with a creativity and innovation challenge in the morning. They will then brainstorm and prepare their innovative proposals, which will then be presented before a panel of judges in the afternoon.

The Free Enterprise Marathon for Entrepreneurial High School and College Students was created four years ago to encourage students to become better informed about the importance of free enterprise and to encourage and reward their creativity and innovations, according to Dr. Nancy Church, chair of the Department of Marketing and Entrepreneurship.

The competition was two-fold: the first part took place between Oct. 30, 2015 and Feb. 12, 2016. Students had to deliver a three- to four-minute speech on “Free Enterprise: Problems I Would Solve as a Social Entrepreneur.” Each school’s winner moves on to compete in the “speak-off” finals during the marathon on March 4.

In addition SUNY Plattsburgh, colleges participating in this year’s marathon include Clarkson University, Clinton Community College, Hudson Valley Community College, St. Michael’s College, Southern Vermont College, SUNY Adirondack, SUNY Canton, SUNY New Paltz, the University of New Hampshire and University of Vermont. High schools are Peru Junior/Senior High School, Plattsburgh High School, Seton Catholic and Westport Central School, and the North Country Homeschooling group.

For more information, contact Church at 518-564-4169 or [email protected].