USU wins student chapter of the year for information systems research
Between April 11 and 13, Utah State University received the award for Student Chapter of the Year during the tenth annual Association for Information Systems Student Chapter Leadership Conference at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
The Association for Information Systems is an organization dedicated to providing research and scholarly work around the field of information systems. According to David Olsen, the department head for Management Information Systems, information systems involves applying computer technology to provide data, analyze data and solve business problems.
“You analyze, analyze twenty different ways, and the endgame is to make better decisions,” Olsen said.
While the overall purpose of the AIS is to produce research and scholarly work around information systems, the purpose of the student chapters is primarily based in competition and career preparation.
According to members of USU’s ASI executive board, the university received the award for their effort in promoting diversity in the program, providing workshops for the public and documenting an overall improvement in the chapter’s performance.
“We were judged not only on whether we’re doing all these things like service and having enrollment but also on our improvement over previous,” said Jeff Johnson, the faculty advisor for the group. “It was an intense effort.”
Olsen said that part of the award stems from the massive amounts of time spent by AIS student officers in “documenting the awesomeness” of the student events.
“I was told that documenting [USU’s efforts] was a thing that separated us from a lot of the schools,” Olsen said.
The award also opens up new opportunities for the group, especially on USU campus. Members of the executive board said that the award could give the group more exposure.
“People have a tendency to support a winning team,” said Clayton Wilkinson, the AIS Treasurer for USU’s student chapter. “This allows us to have better outreach to the businesses. We can compete with the big boys. We’re here to stay.”
USU is one of the founding members of the AIS student chapters. Although the USU student chapter has existed on campus for 15 years, recently the group has experienced unprecedented growth.
“It’s really grown. About 4 years ago they might have had 30 on a good night,” Wilkinson said. “We have a hard time finding a forum to meet our needs now, we have so many students attending now.”
“I’ve watched it forever,” Olsen said. “I’ve never seen us hitting a hundred, and we’ve done that regularly this year.”
AIS is focused not only on furthering education for students in information systems, but also on helping prepare students for future employment
“It helps student get a job, not just an education” Wilkinson said. “We are not a throw a frisbee on the quad type of group. We’re a group that provides business skills so that when they leave here, they take something with them.”
Members of AIS at USU say they hope their success this year will lead to future improvement.
Benton Smith, the Vice President of Events for USU’s student chapter said, “It gives us a really great platform to build off of for future years, that we have a model that works so we can improve.”