Once again, UW-Whitewater’s American Marketing Association collegiate chapter has been recognized as the International Chapter of the Year.

This is the seventh time the chapter has been recognized since 2001.

AMA President senior Emily Gullickson said winning Chapter of the Year was a surreal feeling.

“There are no words to describe what it felt like when we won Chapter of the Year,” Gullickson said.

Senior Briana Roy is the Vice President of AMA.

“Winning Chapter of the Year was awesome,” Roy said.  “You know all your hard work paid off, and that other people could see how hard you worked.”

Graduate student Daniel Herlache is the AMA External Professional Adviser.

“I was a member of AMA way back when it started” Herlache said.  “It is totally amazing to me how far we have come.  These students are so professional and so dedicated that it is a pleasure to see their growth from new member to veteran.”

The recognition took place at the annual conference on March 21 to 23 in New Orleans.

International Chapter of the Year

This is the second year in a row the UW-Whitewater chapter has been recognized as International Chapter of the Year.  AMA adviser Jimmy Peltier said AMA has been recognized a total of 10 times more than 35 years.

“There are more than 350 chapters, so UW-Whitewater is recognized as the unquestionable best chapter out there,” Peltier said.

Peltier said UW-Whitewater was recognized as the Chapter of the Year when the very first AMA competition started in 1986.

“Our goal is to always be better than we were the year before,” Peltier said.  “We believe that if we beat ourselves, then we have reached our goal.”

Marketing Lecturer Andy Dahl is the AMA Research Adviser.

“I was a four-year UW-Whitewater AMA member while I was an undergraduate student,” Dahl said.  “Coming back and teaching at UW-Whitewater and becoming an AMA adviser has been a real treat for me.  In truth, while we also won best chapter during my years as a member, today’s chapter is way ahead of where we were.  The students are the same; it’s just that we continuously work on being better than the year before.”

The recognition for International Chapter of the Year is judged based on the information submitted in the chapter’s annual report.

The reports are then judged by advisers.  The reports consist of the chapter’s activity including professional development, community service, fundraising, communications, membership, chapter operations, professional presentation and chapter plans for the year.

Assistant Professor of marketing Shannon Cummins is the AMA Sales Adviser.

“This is my first year at UW-Whitewater and as an adviser,” said Cummins.  “When I was proof reading the annual report, I could not believe how much students accomplished this year.  When you add everything up ours seems more like a company than a group of students.”

Gullickson said the chapter did five certificate programs this year. Last year, the chapter only completed three.

Junior Kelsey Krueger is the Vice President of certificates and workshops.  Krueger said she organized the retail certificate, which included working with the following companies:  Kohls, Enterprise, Target and WalMart.

“What the [certificate] entailed was, in addition to our meetings on Wednesday, we would invite the company to come and stay afterwards to have more one on one interaction with a group of students interested in working in retail,” Krueger said.

“The main thing we focused on this semester was getting network opportunities for students,” Gullickson said.

Senior Austin Durham won  second place as AMA Student of the Year, and Senior Samantha Hoerchner won one of the three scholarships and also competed in the Case Competition.

“Both are impressive given that there are almost 10,000 student members,” Peltier said.

Case Competition

This year UW-Whitewater placed second in the Case Competition.  To be considered for International Chapter of the Year, the chapter must have a team compete in the Case Competition.

The team members were senior Samantha Hoerchne, sophomore Katelyn Herlache, Krueger, senior Emily Stocks and Multi-media Director Senior Ethan Wilke.

Assistant marketing professor Pavan Chennamaneni was the AMA Case Adviser.

“Taking second place over schools like Wharton, University of Arizona and UNLV was quite an accomplishment,” Chennamaneni said.  “I could not be prouder of our students.  Over the year we spent literally thousands of combined hours on the project.  To see them execute their case so well in front of a set of judges and the smiles on their faces upon learning their fate made it worth all the time and effort put in.  This was our record ninth consecutive year making the finals, so obviously we have had a great group of students working on the cases over the years.”

This year for the Case Competition, the students had to create an Integrated Marketing Communication plan for Donate Life America.  DLA is a national arm that supports organ donation across the U.S.  The goal of the project was to increase support for organ, eye and tissue donations, and to increase organ donor registration.

Krueger said the team had to create an Integrated Marketing Communications Campaign, which required research on DLA and understanding their target market.

The case finals took place at the conference in New Orleans.  Krueger said the team put in hours of practice to remember the material presented at the conference.

“It was a lot of hard work, but it really paid off,” Krueger said.  “We did very well.”

What is AMA

AMA is a professional organization that includes groups of professionals, academics and college students.  Each university or college has a Collegiate Chapter.  UW-Whitewater is recognized as the UW-Whitewater collegiate chapter.

The goal of the collegiate wing of AMA is to help student members gain valuable experiences that will assist them in acquiring a career.  Gullickson said she has gained experience with public speaking and networking through AMA.

“The end result I want to see is that people who are active in AMA end up with a job or internship they enjoy,” Gullickson said.  “We get multiple touch points for students to network with companies and eventually receive jobs and internships from those companies.”