SIFE to open store on Drury campus

Drury University's College Park Community Center soon will be home to a new campus convenience store.

The store will be operated by Drury's nationally recognized chapter of Students in Free Enterprise and will provide working members with a taste of real world entrepreneurship.

However, SIFE students aren't the only ones who will benefit from this unique business project: students of Drury's Hammons School of Architecture will design the layout of the store, and College Park residents will have easy access to supermarket items.

"It's a win-win situation," said Drury's associate dean and co-advisor for SIFE, Charles Taylor, "It is wonderful experiential learning for the (business and architect) students."

Taylor said the store will be open for business in the early part of the spring 2001 semester, and employees will primarily be members of SIFE, with some oversight duties performed by the faculty. The store will be open strictly during evening hours to better accommodate the students' schedules.

"This year, it will likely be staffed by SIFE students," he said. "We anticipate though, in subsequent years we'll be able to offer hourly employment to other students."

SIFE is a 25-year-old nonprofit organization that gives students the tools to learn the free enterprise system in a real working situation. It has been headquartered in Springfield since 1989 with chapters at more than 700 colleges and universities worldwide.

"SIFE has tried to keep a high profile on (Drury's) campus," Taylor said. "We like to find projects that serve the campus community as well as the larger community."

According to Rusty Worley, Drury's director of business services and originator of the project, the store will largely service residents of College Park, Manley Hall and three nearby fraternities, which add up to approximately 375 residents.

"The primary goal was to meet the students' needs in that area; to serve them in an after hours, evening format right where they live, study and congregate," he said. "Having the facility and a group to sponsor it were secondary things, but it all fit very nicely."

The facility was previously used for neighborhood and community meetings, classes and outside group conferences, but has been under-utilized of late.

On Sep. 9, the architecture students competed in a one-day competition for the store's design. The different teams met that morning at the College Park Community Center to get a view of the facility they'd be working with. Then it was time for brainstorming, as each team collaborated their efforts to submit a design plan by mid-afternoon.

This competition, called a "charrette," teaches students to work competently with one another in a limited time slot and is relatively common in architectural circles, Taylor said.

Architecture faculty and members of the Drury administration are presently judging the concepts.

The winning submission will be awarded a $250 prize by SIFE.

Senior Leigh Salzeider, an executive committee member of SIFE and an integral part of the store's plans, observed the charrette and was thoroughly impressed.

"I was blown away at what they could accomplish in such a short time," he said.

Salzeider, who will work as store manager during its first semester of operation, said it will be modeled after the pantry style stores and will contain such college necessities as milk, bread, canned foods, snacks, candy bars, soft drinks, coffee, magazines and laundry detergent.

"We're confident that after this first year we can really make it an enduring enterprise," said Taylor.

Worley said he feels that the store's success hinges on its ability to remain self-sufficient, while serving the needs of the students.

"The intent is that, with the good management of SIFE, it will return a profit to go toward the organization to help its costs," he said. "Embedded in that is their ability to find out what the students' needs are and creatively tap into that."

In preparation, SIFE surveyed the students in the College Park area to determine how they could best service them.

SIFE is also conducting a "name the store" competition that will give all students the opportunity to vote or suggest a name.

"We're really trying to involve the campus as a whole," said Crissy Kaesebier, a senior majoring in public relations and SIFE member. She feels that news about the store is really starting to spread across campus via word of mouth.

"We have turned the students loose on it and have encouraged them to be entrepreneurial about it," Worley said. "The SIFE group is a very talented, organized group, and we knew they would do things right."

Besides the direction it may have to provide, the faculty's only other role will be that of periodic monitoring and review. Worley said that may be done on a yearly basis.

"We're very optimistic that this is going to be a successful venture," he said.