Eight Martha and Spencer Love School of Business students showcased Elon’s Beta Alpha Psi chapter at the international organization’s regional meeting.
By Erin Manchuso '19
Members of Elon’s Lambda Xi chapter of Beta Alpha Psi (BAP), the international honor organization for financial information students and professionals, placed first in the Best Practices “Roots” category at the BAP Southeast regional meeting held Feb. 22-23 in Jacksonville, Florida.
The first-place team was comprised of junior accounting major Christian Carme, senior finance major Sophia Mancini, senior accounting major Jake O’Brien and senior accounting and computer science double major Kaitlyn Tomaino. Patty Cox, assistant professor of accounting and BAP faculty adviser, mentored and accompanied the team.
The BAP regional meeting provides students with the opportunity to network with other chapter members from the Southeast, attend engaging speaker sessions and develop professional skills. Teams participating in the competition portion of the event were evaluated by a panel of unaffiliated judges and corporate partners on the quality of content presented, flow of the presentation itself and clarity of the presenters’ message.
In the Best Practices “Roots” presentation, the Elon team described what the Lambda Xi chapter has done to foster lifelong ethical, social and public responsibility among its members and how they have successfully furthered that message through online platforms. The students articulated the primary goals of Lambda Xi's practice – to instill ethical decision making and integrity in the accounting and finance fields, and to promote the core values of leadership, professionalism and personal development – and how the officers communicate these goals using online platforms such as PhoenixConnect, MailChimp and LinkedIn.
“Attending the BAP Southeast regional meeting was a very rewarding experience,” said Carme. “I had the opportunity to network with Beta Alpha Psi members from other chapters as well as attend thought-provoking professional sessions put on by BAP alumni. It was incredibly valuable practice to present in front of an audience in a real-world situation and be critiqued on the quality of our work.”
Tyler Pastore ’19, Rebecca Roberts ‘19, Victoria Simpkins ‘19 and McKenna Patterson ’21 competed in the Best Practices “Branches” category, where teams were given the challenge of describing how their chapter has used technology to effectively reach out to finance and information systems community members and what programs have been implemented to widen the reach of membership.
Simpkins, O’Brien, Roberts and Patterson also participated in the "Wildcard" session, where chapters explained how they incorporate continuing education at chapter meetings. Elon’s presentation covered implementing a system of requesting employers/recruiters to pick a topic to speak about and providing opportunities for members to network with industry professionals to get the most of each one-hour chapter meeting.
In addition to cash prizes, the first-place team was invited to attend and compete at BAP’s annual meeting in Chicago in August.