In early August, members of Missouri State University’s Beta Alpha Psi (BAP), an international organization for accounting, finance and information systems students, placed first at the International Beta Alpha Psi Annual meeting in Chicago, Illinois. This win follows the Missouri Valley Regional Best Practices Competition at the end of March in Wichita, Kansas where MSU’s BAP chapter placed first in all three categories.

The team competing consisted of Ben Dobson, Jackson Frazier, Sean Lee, Alina Liu, Frederic Liu, Katrina Tang and Jay Wang. 

The BAP winning team secured first place by recognizing and improving past service events, as well as conducting service events with the help of the whole chapter. The team’s goal was to improve MSU’s BAP chapter through service. They held events at three senior assisted living centers, providing tech workshops and one-on-one consulting. When the service events were complete, they documented their work through a 10-minute presentation. Ben Dobson, Jackson Frazier and Katrina Tang presented this work at nationals. 

“The key to their success was starting with why they wanted to help,” said Dr. Carl Keller, faculty advisor and associate professor in MSU’s School of Accountancy. “They saw how badly seniors needed help with their technical and financial literacy and knew they had to do something. The team had the skills and resources to approach the problem, and they executed with the end goal in mind the entire time.”

“The BAP Annual Conference was an excellent opportunity to connect with committed accounting students and fellow future certified public accountants from around the world,” said Jackson Frazier who participated. “By presenting at nationals, I proudly represented my school and the hard work of my peers and teachers. I also was able to display our hard work to partners representing the four biggest accounting firms in the U.S.”

MSU’s BAP chapter will travel to Omaha, Nebraska April 3-4, 2020 to compete at the next regional meeting.