International Student Essay Contest

“Can Character and Communities Survive in an Age of Globalization?”

The Culture of Enterprise Project annually sponsors an international student essay contest on the topic "Can Character and Communities Survive in an Age of Globalization?" The contest is designed to encourage students to reflect on the relationship between free enterprise and the institutions and mores that define a particular culture.

Contest Awards
First Place	$10,000
Second Place	$5,000
Third Place	$2,000
Fourth Place	$1,500
Fifth Place	$1,000

Honorable mentions receive a small library of classic texts. Winning essays are published as an ISI monograph and finalists are honored at the ISI Indianapolis Leadership Conference each Spring.

The application form can be found here (pdf).

Panel of Judges (PDF)

Please direct all inquiries to cofe@isi.org.

ISI received another bumper-crop of outstanding entries for the third annual culture of enterprise student essay contest, and we are pleased to present below this year's top five winners. We would like to thank every student who submitted an essay for competing in the contest, and we encourage present and future full-time undergraduates interested in how to strike the proper balance between economics and ethics, markets and morality to participate in next year's contest.

2008 Culture of Enterprise Student Essay Winners “Can Character and Community Survive in an Age of Globalization?”
1st Place	Brian Douglass, Cookeville, Tennessee – Tennessee Technological University “Community and Character: The Threat from Globalization”
2nd Place	Amy Gabriel, Whitby, Ontario, Canada – Tyndale University “Globalization: Two Alternate Visions”
3rd Place	Karl Gregory, Rodney, Michigan – Central Michigan University “Maintaining Character and Community in the Age of Globalization”
4th Place	Christopher Higgins, East Setauket, New York – Harvard University “The Marketplace of Sameness: The Struggle for Character and Community in an Age of Globalization”
5th Place	Trevor Shunk, Loveland, Ohio – Hillsdale College “The Crisis of our Age: The Family in an Age of Globalization”

2007 Culture of Enterprise Student Essay Winners “Can Character and Community Survive in an Age of Globalization?”
1st Place	James Tillman, Lost Creek, West Virginia – Christendom College “Globalization and Community: A Conflict of the Good”
2nd Place	Aaron Kreuter, Chanhassen, Minnesota – University of Minnesota “The Cultural Cost of Globalization: Observations on Business School, Free Lunch, and Moral Relativism”
3rd Place	John Jalsevac, Toronto, Canada – Christendon College “Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Globalization”
4th Place	Garreth Bloor, Cape Town, South Africa – University of Cape Town “Markets, Morality and the Challenges of Globalization”
5th Place	Jeremy Mann, Minnetrista, Minnesota – Biola University “An Apology for the City: Place in the Global Era”

2006 Culture of Enterprise Student Essay Winners
1st Place	Pin-Quan Ng, Singapore – Columbia University “The Culture of Success: Foundations for Competitiveness in the Global Economy”
2nd Place	Megan Pinney, Waco, Texas – Baylor University “Community: Relearning the Good in an Age of Globalization”
3rd Place	Krishna Pokharel, Kathmandu, Nepal – University of Delhi “Globalization: A Cultural Paradigm in the Flat World”
4th Place	Joseph Corey, Rochester, Michigan – Central Michigan University “Globalization: A Path to Liberty”
5th Place	Hans Zeiger, Puyallup, Washington – Hillsdale College “Moral Imaginings in an Age of Globalization: Optimism, Pessimism, and the ‘Permanent Things’”

For more information on ISI's Culture of Enterprise Initiative, please contact its director,
Dr. Rich Brake, at cofe@isi.org.