This is a national essay contest for graduate and undergraduate students who take a course in employee ownership.  The course at KSU is noncredit and free of charge.

Many people are unaware that there are over 10,000 employee owned businesses in the US. These companies typically outperform their conventional counterparts in sales, return on investment, employer retirement benefits and job creation. There are thousands more companies that offer stock options and stock awards. The purpose of the essay contest is to increase awareness of employee ownership and its potential benefits.

Prize list: for the Kent State University contest

$500 first prize, $300 second prize, $100 third prize

Best essays will be submitted to the national contest sponsored by the Foundation for Enterprise Development (FED) to compete with students from other colleges and universities who have also taken a course requiring the essay.

National prizes

● First place $1500 cash and sponsored attendance at 2011 National Center for Employee Ownership/Beyster Institute conference in Denver 4/12/11-4/15/11
● Second place $750 cash and sponsored attendance at 2011 NCEO/Beyster Institute conference in Denver 4/12/11-4/15/11
● Third place $500 cash award
● Fourth place $250 cash award

To be eligible to enter the essay contest, students must be enrolled in any undergraduate or graduate degree program at Kent State University in the Fall of 2010. Employees and immediate relatives of employees of the Ohio Employee Ownership Center are not eligible to enter the essay contest, but they may attend the course.

To enroll, meet in Business Administration 208 at 4 p.m. on Tuesday, September 7. Please bring signed Student Participation Agreement with your email written under your signature. Download Student Participation Agreement

Students must attend five course meetings in 215 Satterfield Hall. September 14 - October 12 on Tuesday afternoons at 4 p.m. (pizza and refreshments included). Students write a 500-750 word essay on one of the following questions.

1) What are the forms of employee ownership and participation that you believe most closely link to increased economic stability, sustainability, and innovation? If you have any ideas about what corporations or the government can do to encourage such forms, please discuss and provide views on important policies.

2) To utilize sharing the wealth principles, how would you envision establishing a highly involved and motivated workforce, and rewarding them so employees not only are owners like owners?

3) Considering sharing the wealth principles, what would be the top guiding principles that you would establish in a new enterprise in order to create a culture that enables sustainable growth?

Course is organized by Jacquelyn Yates, professor emerita from Political Science at Kent State University, research director at the Ohio Employee Ownership Center and editor of Owners at Work

Course Syllabus

This is a noncredit course to prepare students to enter a national essay contest sponsored by the Kent State University’s Ohio Employee Ownership Center and Cooperative Development Center along with the Foundation for Enterprise Development.

Course Meetings 215 Satterfield Hall

September 14    4:00-5:45 p.m. Briefest history and quick catalogue of collective ownership of enterprises/shared capitalism – experience and philosophy that supported early industrial coops in US and Europe, causes of subsequent eclipse, emergence of public stock market and small investors, direct stock ownership before the Depression surprisingly widespread,  Kelso philosophy and how it differed from earlier ideas of shared capitalism, ESOPs, direct share ownership, share ownership through tax-deferred 401k retirement plans, grants of shares, awards of shares, options - Instructor: Jacquelyn Yates

September 21, 4.-5:45 p.m. The ABCs of ESOPs and Coops Tentative Date: Instructor - Chris Cooper

September 28, 4.-7:10 p.m. The ESOP game: Instructor - Bill McIntyre

October 5 , 4.-5:45 p.m. Leadership, Management and Participation in Employee-Owned Companies - Instructor: Jay Simecek

October 12, 4-5:45 p.m. Discussion of Robert Beyster book, The SAIC Solution - Instructor: Ashley Hernandez

Essays due to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or delivered to the OEOC, 113 McGilvrey Hall, (on Lincoln Avenue across from Dubois Book Store)  by 9 a.m. October 26.

All course participants wil receive a copy of Robert Beyster’s The SAIC Solution and an invitation to the OEOC’s annual conference on April 29, 2011 at the Akron Fairlawn Hilton.

To enroll, meet in Business Administration 208 at 4 p.m. on Tuesday, September 7. Please bring signed Student Participation Agreement with your email written under your signature. Download Student Participation Agreement