Highlights

Campus News

Wildcat Weekly Minute for Nov. 17, 2011

A look at what's happening on campus this week.

Faith

Louisiana College ‘Voices’ along with LBC Call for an ‘Awakening’

Debut of project at Evangelism Conference

Sports

LC hoops teams wrap up homestand with pair of wins

Off to Ozarks, UT-Dallas next

Organizations

LC media student give to Toys for Tots

More than 100 toys will help local charity

Campus Life

February is Heart Health Awareness Month

Stay healthy and 'God Red'

Culture

All the Shakespeare you could laugh at… and more!

tlc's adaptation of 'Shakespeare Abridged' pulls out all the stops

Special Coverage

LC brings another successful ‘Follow the Star’

'Christmas on the Hill' and 'Gala' add to festive weekend

LC business class “Bounces” its way to the top

by Quinn Lavespere

Students gain national recognition through online strategy game

Louisiana College instructor David Culp’s introduction of a new business game this year has reaped rewards that have made LC a near-force internationally.

Five of Clup's students are competing online with their fictitious company, Bounce!, and as of last week were ranked 83rd in a field of hundreds of teams from across the globe.

“Everybody’s doing well in the game, and these graduating seniors are learning valuable things that will help them later on in their lives,” said Culp.

Called "The Business Strategy Game," an online competition developed by faculty at the University of Alabama, it's being used by many colleges and universities throughout the U.S. and concerns competing in a global marketplace.

“I’ve incorporated this into the Business Department’s capstone course Management Strategy and Policy, which is where we incorporate everything students have hopefully learned in their junior and senior years in the business department,” Culp said.

As for how the game came to LC, Culp said that he came across it while reviewing supplemental materials for the Management Strategy and Policy course and “was really taken” with the game’s objective of getting students to incorporate “multifaceted strategies in the game.”

“This was something that was just approved by the Vice President of Academic Affairs, who approves of the material used in the classroom,” Culp said.

Seven teams of LC students in the course compete in selling footwear against Nike and others, but they also compete against other teams in the course and even compete against other teams playing the game globally and internationally.

Students in the course have five main measurements to perform on, such as corporate citizenship and workers’ compensation, and they can even hire celebrities to go out and advertise their footwear much like Nike with Tiger Woods. They also have to do financing of company operations.

“Really, what you have is a picture of business at high level, and students have to anticipate changes in the market and make adjustments each week to measure up to their financial performance standards,” Culp said. “They learn how to use their business knowledge to work successfully as a team.”

Culp added that the game has “driven a very competitive dynamic between the class” and taught them to keep track of how other teams are doing much as “Nike does with Reebok and Wall Street does with others in real life.”

LC's first-place Bounce! team is made up of Andrea Cadwallader, Michael Rachal, Chad Hindman, Matt Albrecht and David Morris, and the team has been ranked near the top 100 throughout the competition.

Culp is also pleased, however, with the all-around success of the students in the game, particularly as the game is in its first semester at LC. He, too, has been learning as he goes along and hopes for even more improvement.

“We’ll be using the game again next spring, and hopefully, we can help students to do a better job with some of their decision-making,” Culp said.

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