Link to Higher Education

Each high school SAGE team is encouraged to work with older students enrolled at their nearest community college and/or university (e.g., alumni from a high school who are former SAGE members, or older brothers and sisters who are in college). The mission of almost all colleges and universities include a commitment to serving the educational, cultural and economic needs of their area.

Service Learning - Some professors link their course objectives to community service activities, thereby employing a teaching strategy called community service-learning. Furthermore, many collegiate student organizations are given credit for delivering activities in the community, and K-12 students are a primary audience for these activities. So see an example of how one university professor offers “bonus points” to university students who become mentors and consultants to high school SAGE students, click here.

Specific to the business discipline, there are many student organizations that are rewarded for community service work. Among these organizations are Beta Alpha Psi, the Marketing Association, Delta Sigma Pi and Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE). In documenting how a SAGE team has used their mentors, the team should explain what role the mentors played in helping them identify, deliver, assess and present their activities. The best mentors take on the role of coach and consultant to help the SAGE team achieve its goals.

SAGE’s Judging Criterion #7 - One of SAGE’s judging criteria reads:

In their activities, how effective were the students in utilizing at least one or two college “mentors” from a nearby college or university to help them identify, deliver, assess and present their activities?

By explicitly linking high school SAGE teams to university students, via criterion #7, we are building in a new incentive for high schools to reach up to universities for assistance, and for universities to reach down to help younger students be successful.