School of Business

When: Fri., Feb. 5 @ 4:00
Ends: Sat., Feb. 20 @ 5:00
Host: Business Essentials, School of Business
Event contact: Hannah Stewart, stewarthm3@vcu.edu
Audience: Undergraduate students

What: Challenge yourself and improve your appreciation for ethical decision making in business! Develop, rehearse, and deliver an ethical business case study presentation with the help of professional coaches and compete for over $10,000 in prize money (the first place prize is $5,000). This mentored virtual experience begins with the announcement of topics at the Kickoff Event and culminates with the final round of presentations on Saturday of the main event.   

When: The kickoff event takes place Friday, February 5th, 4-6 PM, the main event takes place Friday, February 19, 5-10 PM, and Saturday, February 20, 10 AM-5 PM

How will it work? The competition will begin with a Kickoff Event on Friday, February 5th from 4-6 PM. At the Kickoff Event, registered students join the festivities via Zoom at 4PM, where they will meet with their assigned teams. Each team receives the same case with background research and begins to design a 5-7-minute presentation. Between the competition and the main event, teams have time to receive mentoring via Studio BE. Throughout the evening of the main event on Friday, February 21 teams will design a compelling virtual presentation (with support from presentation consultants), team outlines are due by 10 PM. (There’s a prize for best outline!)

Saturday morning, teams will arrive back on Zoom to begin rehearsing under the guidance of presentation coaches. Early in the afternoon, all teams compete in Round 1 in front of a panel of judges from the business community. Top presenters in each topic will move forward to Round 2, competing for cash prizes. Contestants who do not move forward to the second round become judges for the Competitors Choice category. 

Requirements:
All team members must be enrolled as VCU School of Business Undergraduate major or minor.
Participants are required to be present for the entirety of the event, Friday, February 5th, 4-5 PM, Friday, February 19, 5-10 PM, and Saturday, February 20, 8 AM-5 PM.
Presentations are limited to 5-7 minutes in length.
Presentations must recognize and address the ethical considerations of the assigned case.
Participants are expected to dress in Business Professional attire for Day 2, Saturday, February 20nd, for rehearsing and competing. (Friday is casual.)

Registration: There is no fee to participate in this experience.
Click here to Sign-Up as a competitor in the 2021 VCU School of Business Ethics Alive through Creative Communication.

Workshops: Every Friday leading up to the competition, there will be FREE workshops for participants in Studio BE.