First-timer a winner at national BAP competition

09/12/2011 9:23 AM

By Elise Dismer ’13

Though it was the first time Bradley sent a student to Beta Alpha Psi’s Project Run With It competition, the accounting major performed like a veteran and brought home a first-place award.

Emily Ioerger ’13 won $1,000 for Bradley’s Beta Alpha Psi chapter, a national student accounting organization, at the society’s conference held in Denver, Colo. The aim of Project Run With It, an annual contest sponsored by Beta Alpha Psi, was to develop solutions to actual business problems of three actual not-for-profit agencies.

“I was interested in the competition right away because I had interned with the American Red Cross and I felt like I could really help out,” Ioerger said.

Fifteen teams of students were assigned to one of three agencies. After meeting with them to gather information, the groups of four had roughly 16 hours to develop solutions and then present them to the judges.

“It was like doing an internship in two days,” said Professor Dr. Simon Petravick, faculty advisor for Bradley’s Beta Alpha Psi chapter. “At an internship, your employer will give you an assignment to do, you’re going to have to work with people that you haven’t met before and you’re going to have to meet deadlines. It’s not like a classroom problem where you can check your answer in the back of the book.”

Ioerger said that the experience was very valuable.

“It’s not just the fact that we were actually helping not-for-profits,” she said. “It was the fact that we were able to go network and practice public speaking in front of large groups. It’s a really good representation of what Bradley offers, the extra curricular activities that are possible and what type of things you can do.”

Ioerger and Petravick both encourage students to participate in next year’s Project Run With It.

“I hope people realize that there are these options offered at Bradley and they’re not offered at every school,” Ioerger said. “Bradley’s always doing a good job. It was just a really rewarding experience.”

Beyond Project Run With It, other Bradley students played active roles at the national Beta Alpha Psi conference. 

Four students gave a presentation at the conference about how to run effective fundraisers, citing examples from activities run by Bradley’s chapter of Beta Alpha Psi. They discussed how to conduct t-shirt sales and how to sponsor a “Night at the Races” to raise money for Race for the Cure.

Bradley was also recognized as one of the co-host chapters for this national meeting. The chapter helped with one of the pre-meeting step-ups, assembled materials and organized around 1,000 backpacks, which were distributed to the conference participants.

“It was a great experience,” Petravick said. “An important part of a Bradley education occurs outside of classrooms. This is one of the best examples of what we can do.”