University of Arkansas 2015-2016 AIS Annual Report
Table of Contents Summary... 3-4 2015 Officers... 5 Professional Development... 6 Community Service... 7 Fundraising... 8 Membership... 9 Communications... 10 Careers in Information Systems... 11 Chapter Operations... 12 Budget/Financial Statements... 13 Metrics/Demographics... 14-15 Back Cover/Contact Information... 16 2
Summary: Letter From the President Dear AIS Members, Officers and Administrators, This marks the end of my first year serving as President for this growing organization. I am extremely proud of what Association for Information Systems chapter at the University of Arkansas Sam M. Walton College of Business has accomplished for the 2015-2016 school year. This past year we challenged ourselves to gain relationships with departments and organizations outside of our own. We reached out to the Association for Computer Machinery of University of Arkansas College of Engineering and the Walton College s Information Technology Research Institute (ITRI). ACM helped us connect with students outside of Walton College that had the same interest in technology as well as our students connecting with organizations outside of our own. This was done by organizing events alongside ACM such as the Fall 2015 Kick-off and the Fall 2015 Bowling Social. ACM and AIS also announced each other s events through their own PR channels. Our relationship with the Information Technology Research Institute began with them inviting our organization to their Fall 2015 Advisory Board meeting. This gave us the opportunity to present ourselves to IT leaders in companies closely tied to the University of Arkansas. With the help of the ITRI we began our IT Guiding Principles Workshop Series. This workshop series sparked interest in our members by gaining professional development on hot IT topics and networking with working IT professionals. Although challenging, it was a great success. I can t wait to continue these workshops in the future. For the future I would like to continue building relationships outside of our organization and outside of the Sam M. Walton College of Business. This year was a stepping stone in getting connected to larger parts of the University of Arkansas. We already began seeing huge benefits from reaching out, and the benefits will continue to grow as we move forward. I also challenge next year s leadership team to be a strong presence in the classroom. I want to give huge thanks to my leadership team and faculty advisor Dr. Susan Bristow. It was a privilege to work with individuals that display such an excitement for this organization. Their hard work ethic and positive attitudes made this year enjoyable not only for me, but AIS members as well. The energy given by the leadership was well received by our members. Meetings/events were not a chore, but an amazing experience to share with friends. Respectfully, Madison Wall President, Association for Information Systems University of Arkansas - Fayetteville 3
Overall Mission The University of Arkansas AIS chapter has crafted the mission s statement, to promote the study and utilization of information systems through programs of professional development, social networking, and community development. We encourage all majors that have an interest in technology to join our organization. With events such as the IT Guiding Principles Workshop Series, Excel Workshop Series, and networking events such as Phillips 66 and Koch Industries we followed our mission s statement this year. 4
2015 2016 Officers Marlo Gohla-Dev. Christine Feng-Treasurer Madison Wall-President Annalisa Scharff- Membership Russell Jacobs- Operations Nick Yarbrough- Operations Jonathan Ma-Secretary 5
Professional Development As the Leadership Team for AIS, our number one top priority is helping our members adequately prepare for the workforce. This is accomplished by connecting professionals in the industry with AIS students. We understand that students have a wide range of skills and interests and we want to help develop those skills so they are ready to achieve their goals. This year, we reached out to the career center to assist in resume revisions prior to the Walton College of Business Career Fair. Breakfast was provided and advisors from the career center reviewed the students resumes. For the Spring 2016 Semester, the AIS Leadership Team coordinated an IT Guiding Principles Workshop Series that was made up of five workshops. Each workshop was based on a trending topic in the IT industry. The guest speakers consisted of executives and management leaders that ranged all the way from small startups to large organizations. For each event, the guest speakers were encouraged to come early and stay a little while after so that students had the opportunity to network with the speakers. This allowed students the ability to practice their communication skills with professionals and learn more about opportunities in the industry. 6
Community Service Our chapter of the Association for Information Systems provided service back to our community in a unique and different way. Since our fast-growing chapter is still relatively small in size, coming up with community service ideas was originally a difficult pursuit. To combat this and encourage others in the group to give back to our community, a few members on our AIS leadership team elected to teach hands-on workshops intrinsic to enterprise applications. We originally intended to make this student-exclusive, but eventually elected to make the workshops open to the community in hopes of assisting them in providing the surrounding area a hands-on chance to learn more about common business applications that are commonly used among bigger companies. During our workshop series, we taught basic Microsoft Word and Excel fundamentals, and then transitioned into more advanced topics related to programming in Microsoft s.net framework and how this can be immensely beneficial to a business. To furthermore show how these applications can be used in a real-world setting, a few members of our leadership team were allowed to present spreadsheets and a few basic databases that are based on companies they are affiliated with. The turnout for each individual workshop exceeded our expectations, and in the process we hoped that we provided our community with useful skills to furthermore enhance the technological growth of Northwest Arkansas. 7
Fundraising The Walton College Information Systems Department is a generous supporter of our AIS Student Chapter. Additional funding was raised through a technology workshop series (mentioned above) with an entry fee of $10 to help fundraise technology-related excursions outside of our typical classroom setting. This in turn helped fund extracurricular field trips when travelling to nearby companies to get a hands-on experience on how Information Systems contributed to the growth and every day operations of their organization. Moreover, the extra funding aided in proving a source for social and team building opportunities. Another fundraising opportunity of allowing members to purchase t-shirt and other novelties pertaining to our association took place this academic year. This in turn assisted us to pool more funds to cover various extra expenses, and also helped us maintain more-than-adequate funds to help promote and expand the knowledge of Information Systems to not only throughout the Walton College, but also to the surrounding community as well. 8
Membership Our AIS Student Chapter is comprised of approximately 10 seniors, 20 juniors, 4 sophomores, and 2 freshmen as of April 2016. Membership is free. Our chapter is primarily made up of juniors and seniors because a significant portion of our focus is on finding internships and full time jobs after graduation. We increased our average attendance at member meetings by 36% going from 16 attendees in the Fall to 25 attendees in the Spring. We implemented a few strategies before the beginning of the Spring semester that we believe contributed to this growth. First, we all individually promoted AIS during the first week of classes of the semester. We were able to speak at almost every Information Systems course offered at the University and gave a presentation of what AIS is about and the benefits of becoming a member. Our second strategy was to implement a point system to formalize membership status in our chapter. The more participation on the part of the student, the more points are earned. To be considered a member of the University of Arkansas AIS Student Chapter, a student is required to earn 10 points per semester. At the end of each semester we implemented the offering of a $100 gift card in a raffle. Each point the members earned over the 10 points required for membership got them another entry in the raffle. We believe these strategies not only recruited new members but retained members we already had. 9
Communications The University of Arkansas AIS Leadership Team has strategically used communication channels that will effectively reach students so that they are informed, aware, and reminded of events and opportunities in which they can involve themselves. Our leadership team prepares emails, flyers, and word of mouth as primary channels of reaching students. Emails are sent from a listserv to the entire Walton College, as well as all AIS student chapter members. Oftentimes, students do not have the same schedules week to week, so we make sure to email them the week before the event and then two days before the event. For each event, a new flyer is created and posted all around the business buildings and AIS Leadership Team members announce the events in their classrooms. Since the University of Arkansas AIS Chapter has close relationships with their students, oftentimes word of mouth is the best way to reach students. We have classes with many members and will make sure to get them as excited as we are about attending events. 10
Careers in Information Systems Throughout the duration of the 2015-2016 school year, we provided a plethora of networking opportunities for our members to further enhance their familiarity with the Information Systems career field. Not only did we have presentations from a multitude of companies, but we also provided professional workshops and demonstrated how IT applications are commonly used in a typical workplace environment. When various companies came to speak to us, many of them also talked about the variety of internships and full-time positions that were available and/or applicable to the Information Systems field. The scope of companies we brought to present to our members about how Information Technology affected their careers was also diverse. Not only did we have actual IT companies present to us about their day-to-day workflow, but several logistical and marketing companies also came to discuss about how their IT infrastructure helped better pursue their work-related endeavors. We also had many of the same presenters give our members key advice on what skillsets they generally look for when attempting to fulfill an Information Systems-related position at their workplace. While many companies spoke to us on a sporadic basis the first half of the school year, we had an IT guiding principles workshop series toward the latter half of the year that enabled us to have companies speak to us on an almost weekly basis about what skills and knowledge set our members will need to succeed, as well as 11
providing hands-on presentations to allow them to get a better feel for how these principles are actually used in day-to-day business activities. This in turn helped our members acquire a better understanding on what they will need when looking for a career in Information Systems. 12
Chapter Operations For the 2015-2016 school year, our chapter held weekly meetings to discuss planning for upcoming events. Under the leadership of our president, we organized events that expanded our reach to more students by targeting classes involved in Information Systems. The President and Vice President of Professional Community Development collaborated to speak with businesses in order to set up workshops and guest speakers. We have preemptively assigned one member to summarize an event soon after the event. Some members are assigned to distribute flyers across campus to inform students of upcoming events. The Vice President of Membership development handled a membership point system to track active members and membership attendance as well as send reminder emails to members about upcoming events. The Vice Presidents of Operations oversaw meetings and coordinated events when the President was unavailable. The Treasurer maintained the finances and budget for food for events. The Secretary took notes for meetings and events to review for members who were unable to attend. During our weekly meetings, we schedule future events and assign tasks to members for preparation of events. 13
Budget/Financial Statement During this past school year, our operating expenses accounted for the largest portion of our overall expenses, consuming 17.5% of our total operating revenue. Travel expenses accounted for the second largest portion of our overall expenses, consuming roughly 12.0% of our total operating revenue. Clearly we need to improve our fundraising efforts next year, the fundraising revenue we generated from out Excel workshops only account for 1.49% of our total operating revenue. We reported an annual Gross Profit of $10,405.08 and an annual Operating Profit of $8,232.20. An Expense Breakdown chart and Sources of Revenue chart are provided on the next page. 14
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Metrics/Demographics Percentage of Majors Attending AIS Events Percentage of Classification Attending AIS Events 16
Contact Information On behalf of the University of Arkansas AIS Student Chapter and the Department of Information Systems, thank you for your time and consideration. For questions or concerns, please contact the following: Faculty Contact Dr. Susan Bristow Walton College of Business sbristow@walton.uark.edu Student Contact Madison Wall Chapter President wall.madisonrose@gmail.com 17