Southern Illinois University Edwardsville’s Collegiate Chapter of the American Marketing Association (AMA) traveled to New Orleans April 10-12 for the 36th Annual AMA International Collegiate Conference (ICC). The SIUE Collegiate Chapter won the award for Outstanding Community Service award.
AMA sent eight SIUE School of Business students, who are current or future executive board members, to learn from marketing professionals and present the organization’s accomplishments from the 2013-2014 academic year.
During the conference, SIUE Collegiate Chapter AMA President Kevin Buensuceso, a marketing major from Gurnee, and Vice President of Membership Megan Splittstoesser, a marketing major from Cerro Gordo, were invited to present at the conference. Their topic was improving membership recruitment and retention.
“The conference served as a platform to represent the SIUE School of Business chapter on a professional level,” said Buensuceso. “It was a great chance to showcase the accomplishments of our chapter and share our experiences.”
“We spent a lot of time this year developing a marketing campaign for a charity bike ride, Pax2Pax,” said Buensuceso. “Going into the conference, we were not expecting to win anything. Winning this award was definitely a pleasant surprise and something of which we are extremely proud.
“It says a lot about our organization that we can do things that not only help us professionally, but also allow us to give back to the community.”
Buensuceso said attending the conference helped everyone improve both personally and professionally. “We all learned so much and have already begun to implement things that we learned from the conference,” he said. “It gave us additional motivation to really become a top chapter.”
Associate Professor of Marketing and Faculty Advisor for AMA Edmund Hershberger, associate professor of marketing in the SIUE School of Business and faculty advisor for the AMA Collegiate Chapter, finds the conference to be extremely beneficial to the students.
“Attending the AMA International Collegiate Conference is the highlight of the year for the SIUE chapter of the American Marketing Association,” said Hershberger. “Not only are there a wealth of professional development and networking opportunities, but the students also benefit from hearing how other chapters become successful. They can bring back some really great ideas to make our chapter stronger.”
Photo: (Top L-R) President Kevin Buensuceso, Justin Wood, Matt Jones, Adam Collins; (Seated, L-R) Christian Fawns, Megan Splittstoesser, Katelyn Salzman and Kate Jurovic.