South Carolina Business Week enjoys 20th year at PC

July 13, 2006

Presbyterian College welcomed 140 high school juniors and seniors to campus this week for a deeper understanding of the free enterprise system courtesy of the 23rd annual South Carolina Business Week.

More than three dozen business, education, and government leaders - including corporate CEOs from some of South Carolina's leading companies - were instructors and guest speakers featured during the weeklong program, which is sponsored by the S.C. Chamber of Commerce and designed to
educate future businesspeople on entrepreneurship, management, and economics.

For 20 of the 23 years Business Week has been in existence, the residential summer program has been hosted at PC, where students this year engaged in workshops with various businesspeople - including vice president of Progress Energy Emerson Gower, 1990 alumnus and American Solutions for Business owner Lindsay Bickerstaff, and McAlister's executive George McLaughlin - a tour of the Milliken Research Center and a variety of business-related activities.

One of the primary activities was the formation of student-run mock companies - each led by a company advisor - a corporate executive loaned to participate in Business Week. Using their newfound knowledge, students partnered together in small groups and tested their expertise in a computer simulation of two years of business activity.

Norman Scarborough, the William H. Scott Associate Professor of Information Science at PC, helped run the simulation, which allowed students to run their own virtual businesses by making important decisions - pricing, staffing, advertising - and facing realistic crises.

According to Business Week director Andi Gougarty, participants also enjoyed a Business Olympics, Talent Night, and a banquet on Thursday night. She praised the college for being one of the state Chamber's partners in Business Week.

"This is a great campus," she said. "The amenities are great and the size of campus allows us to control a large group of students while giving them some freedom to enjoy the experience."

In the future, she said, Business Week hopes to incorporate more of PC's own faculty in the weeklong activities and expose students to their many talents.

"We want to give back to PC all it has given to us," she said.

Business Week also earned a measure of media attention this week. Greenville's WYFF News 4 taped a segment featuring students and South Carolina Education Television also taped a program that will air on Aug. 12.