SWAU Enactus Team Competes in Missouri

This Enactus team represented Southwestern Adventist University at the National Competition in St. Louis.

Fifteen Southwestern Adventist University students represented Southwestern Adventist University and its Enactus program at the Enactus National Competition in St. Louis, Missouri.

The competitions are challenging, team-oriented events that create a sense of accountability and motivation for teams to continually improve the quality of their projects. The teams competed for three days until the end of competition on April 16, with the winner being named the Enactus national champions. Southwestern’s team won second place in their bracket.

Before each Enactus team from various colleges around the country goes to competition, it must develop and conduct projects to better their communities.

“Enactus is an entrepreneurial business club, but you don’t have to be a business major to be in it,” says Tony Seery, Enactus president at Southwestern. “One of our requirements is that we do projects that impact lives in sustainable, economical, environmental, and socially responsible ways. We were able to meet that requirement by conducting projects in Cleburne, one in the Navajo Indian Reservation in Arizona and two in Keene. After all of our projects were completed, we took all the data we acquired to see how many people we impacted directly as well as how many people we impacted indirectly.”

The national competition involves Enactus clubs from colleges and university across the United States. During the four rounds of competition, students must make their presentations in front of 10 judges. The judges who grade the clubs are business professionals and executives from corporations such as Walmart, CVS, Microsoft and Home Depot.

Presenting in front of business professional that represent major companies can be very nerve wracking, according to Seery, but it does pay off in the end.

“It is very scary when you’re standing in front of these people and they’re just nailing you with questions that you have to answer on the spot,” says Seery. “It is nerve wracking, but you do get closer to the people on the team since you put countless hours to prepare and get everything spot on.  But at the end of the day, there’s no better feeling than when you hear it announced that Southwestern Adventist University Enactus team moves on.”

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