Beta Alpha Psi Places 2nd and 3rd in Best Practices Competition

Adrianne Hutto Production Editor

Beta Alpha Psi attended the mid-semester Best Practices Competition in Pittsburgh where the three teams participated and returned with second and third place standing.

The Best Practices Competition gives students from chapters of Beta Alpha Psi across the country the opportunity to prove that their chapter has the best practices. MC’s chapter received awards in the Reimagining Career Aspirations and Reimagining Community Service categories. The second place winners were William Connors and Nicholas Baldi, and the third place winners were Kevin McGoldrick and Theresa Donlon.

Beta Alpha Psi is an international honor society that accepts students majoring in accounting, finance, computer information systems and business analytics who meet the minimum GPA requirements.

Laurice Dabain, president of MC’s chapter of Beta Alpha Psi, is a senior accounting major pursuing her masters in business administration. Dabain explains that the purpose of the honor society is to help grow student’s experiences while in college to better prepare them for graduation.

“We help boost people’s knowledge in the business field with internships, with new job perspectives and we provide those networking opportunities for our members and candidates,” Dabain said. “Network while you’re in college, so that when you are out of here, you’re fully prepared to take on the workforce.”

The vice president of Beta Alpha Psi, Kevin McGoldrick, explained that prior to the competition in March, members must submit a current issue or event in the business world and participate in a “mini-competition” in February as preparation.

“We usually select some of our members and candidates who perform well in those mid semester presentations to go with us to our regional presentations,” McGoldrick said. “We learn from other Beta Alpha Psi chapters, mainly accounting majors and finance majors.”

Due to COVID, this is the group’s first time in person in nearly two years.

“I competed sophomore and junior year but both virtually,” Dabain said. “We made a video of our presentation and we sent it off and we didn’t know what happened until the results got in from the judges. But this year we went to Pittsburgh and we competed in three categories with three separate teams.”

This change made the competition more nerve wracking for students participating.

“When we presented virtually we were basically standing in the classroom, presenting our slides to the camera,” Dabain said. “We memorized everything but being in front of the camera was slightly less pressure compared to being in person in front of a live audience of over 75 people.”

Placing second in the competition automatically qualified the team to attend the national competition in Las Vegas. Nicholas Baldi, a junior business analytics major, will be attending nationals in August thanks to his group’s placement.

Baldi explained that with this being his first time for- mally presenting outside of the classroom, there was definitely a learning curve.

“Once we got everything done, we had the scripts formulated, we just tried to drill it as much as possible,” Baldi said.

But the group does more than just compete. During the year, Beta Alpha Psi participates in a number of philanthropic events.

“We’re huge on philanthropy…giving back to the Bronx, and as well as on campus,” Dabain said. “We participated in Safe Halloween and…we’re actually having our annual Diaper Dash Bash, which is an initiative where we help raise funds for the HopeLine organization’s diaper distribution program.”

Throughout their years of participating in this event, the club has raised over $10,000, which equates to nearly 50,000 diapers.

Another organization the group works with is Alex’s

Lemonade Stand, which they are able to raise money for throughout the year.

“Almost monthly now during the school year we have these tabling events where we usually are selling some sort of candy, lemonade or we’re having a bake sale for one of our charity organizations,” McGoldrick said. “I liked being able to gather with friends from classes and other kids in the business school and to be able to hang out and socialize and be able to do something for a good cause.”

While there are some nerves for the August Las Vegas competition, Baldi explains that there is also a lot of excitement.

“I’m looking forward to it. I definitely said the first time was great,” Baldi said. “I’d imagine the final would just be on such a bigger, larger scale and I can only imagine the opportunities that I’m going to be given.”