On February 28th, the 10th annual (yes! 10th annual) Elevator Pitch Competition Finals will take place in Alumni Auditorium.
Student participation in the event has continued to rise. As you may know from my annual plea, our experience has shown that the primary factor driving this increase has been that many faculty members have allowed members of the Elevator Pitch Team (Pat Boera and me) to “pitch the Elevator Pitch” in their classrooms.
There is nothing like a “direct sales” pitch to help students understand the value of participating in this important event.
What you can do:
- Allow a member of the Elevator Pitch Team to come to your classes to pitch. It will take about 5-7 minutes of your class time. Please send me a return email advising us of the time and locations of any of your classes in which we would be welcome to pitch the Elevator Pitch. We will confirm your schedule and assign one of us to come to your classes and take a few minutes to “pitch the Elevator Pitch Competition”.
- Consider making Elevator Pitch Competition an extra credit assignment. No extra papers to grade. Simply make participation in the Elevator Pitch workshop (by Eric Ronis) and first round the criteria for extra credit. We will confirm participation for you. Of course you can do more if you like. In the past, some faculty members have offered additional points for performance (qualifying for finals, or winning a prize) and some have required a reflection on the experience. But students will gain great value from simple participation.
Thank you. We look forward to hearing from you.
Robert W. Bloch
Director, BYOBiz
Champlain College
163 South Willard Street
Burlington, VT 05401
(802) 865-6490