Enhancing the Professional Development of Your Chapter Members

Friday, March 17th, 2017
3:00pm

"Enhancing the Professional Development of Your Chapter Members" 

   In this seminar session, five different schools gave brief presentations on ways that professional development events have helped their respective chapters to success. Each school had numerous ideas for events that could be run to help students as they prepare for professional life outside the classroom. 

Bowling Green State University (Ohio):

• Personal Branding Workshop Series
• Outlining purposes, values, & goals as a chapter)
• Defining a vision statement & mission statement
• Identifying material resources/tools available (resume, LinkedIn, business cards)
• Sales Competition
• 1-on-1 interviews with members who gave a fictional sales pitch
• Corporate Partners
• Worked with QuickenLoans, whose headquarters sent a bus for 16 members to take a tour of the business & visit their Sales Training Day
• Case Competition
• Paired new members with executive board members to complete & compete against others within the chapter

Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo (California)

• Corporate tours/sponsors
• Guest speakers & workshop hosts
• Corporate sponsors come into tell what they want in a prospective job candiate
• College of Business Student Council
• Worked with Dean's office to organize events & generate interest
• Member committees (philanthropy, conferences, sponsorships, events, alumni relations, nationals)
• Marketing Career Conference
• Partaking in more competitions & submissions

North Carolina State (North Carolina)

• Interactive Series
• Numerous events that offered workshops of skills that could be put on a resume (e.g. Photoshop Tutorial)
• Networking Events
• Meet the Professionals (formal)
• Business & Billiards (informal)
• Marketing Week
• Denominating fun themes for each day (e.g. "Social Media Monday")
• Summer Planning
• One of best ways to be efficient during semesters
• Project management for each of the VP positions
• Guest Speakers
• Be direct to each speaker what you'd like to hear them talk about

Piedmont College (Georgia)

• What are we doing for the AMA & what are we doing for the community?
• 100% employment out of graduation
• Set achievement to continue as a goal, not just for individuals, but for the chapter
• Drive to continue successes, by keeping statistics
• Set up Regional Conference
• Had 6 local chapters attend
• Ran competitions (e.g "Shark Tank", "Marketing Strategy", "Internet Marketing Simulation")
• Building professional skills, workshops, & speakers
• Follow up with speakers (asking to get lunch) & learning how to succeed like them
• Best compliment to a professional is asking how to be like them & succeed as they have
• Partnerships with local businesses
• Engaging in community; charities/foundations/programs
• Color run
• Cornhole tournament

Texas State University (Texas)

• Opportunities within the chapter
• Create mentor programs
• Leadership development events 
• Webinars & e-conferences are an *awesome* opportunities; free & easy
• Etiquette dinner - to teach proper business-level table manners
• Utilize alumni
• Alum Q&A panel
• Invite past members to attend meetings
• Alumni LinkedIn group
• Social mixer events (e.g. wine bar mixer)
• Connect with AMA Professional chapters
• See if they have a "collegiate relations" position
• Attend events they host; use their event ideas for chapter events
• Develop a mentor program
• Attend a "morning meet-up" to meet professionals if they have one (coffee and Q&A)

These five schools all gave great ideas on ways to improve chapter functions & to make AMA chapters leaders on campus in professional development. I personally noticed that sponsorships were a huge part of many chapters, and in this regard, I would love to see our own chapter reach out to more businesses (especially larger companies that are headquartered near the Boston area).  The Q&A session afterwards was also very resourceful for informations.  Some schools mentioned that a great way to get corporate sponsorships was to reach out to alumni, as well as corporate human resources.  I especially found value in reaching out to alumni & would love to see our chapter take advantage of some of these ideas in the future.  Some chapters that spoke mentioned that it might be a good idea to get anonymous feedback to improve chapter functions an to see what members like/dislike.  All of the chapters agreed that new members need to get involved or they will not find value in the chapter meetings by simply sitting & watching; it is all about personal connection & keeping members updated/involved.