The UMKC Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE) team was named Regional Champion at the Chicago Regional Competitions in April and will compete in the National Competitions on May 22, 23 and 24 in Kansas City.

This interdisciplinary team also received the Club 44 Award, which recognized that UMKC SIFE is one of the largest teams in the U.S. for the second year in a row.

In addition, the team received the 4.0 Club Award. This award is a result of an intensive evaluation on numerous topics, including team accomplishment, the number of successful projects completed, impact in the community, the recognition received from the community and the support that the team receives from its faculty and administration. Previously, the team’s scores averaged 3.5. The 4.0 award places the team in the top 4 percent of teams in the U.S.

The award highlight came at the Sam Walton Fellow Luncheon when – for the first time – UMKC received the 2012 All Star Team Award. Only one team in each of the eleven Regional Competitions received this award, and this means that our team was recognized as the Top Team at the 2012 Regional Competition, competing with schools such as Notre Dame, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Loyola Chicago and the University of Illinois-Champagne Urbana.