AMA - Local History
A Brief History
While the professional chapter is celebrating its fiftieth anniversary,
the collegiate chapter at
Illinois Wesleyan University was born in 1989. It occupies
a distinctive position among the
collegiate chapters within Central Illinois; it is the only one which
is housed in neither a marketing
department nor a college of Business Administration.
The chapter started in 1988 as a “committee” of the Illinois State University
chapter, with its own
officers. Fred Hoyt, who is the only marketing professor at Illinois
Wesleyan, was the advisor at
the time, and has been for the last ten years. The first president
was Sheri Hall, with Darren
Nelson and Darin Worth as her two vice presidents. By the end
of the year, the “committee”
applied for formal membership as a chapter of the American Marketing
Association. In 1989-
1990, its first year on its own, the chapter won recognition as one
of the “Outstanding New
Chapters for Overall Performance” in the organization.
From that auspicious start, the chapter has continued to set standards
for business--and non-
business--students at Illinois Wesleyan. We have tried to supplement
the limited selection of
marketing courses offered in the business department curriculum through
a wide variety of
outside speakers and tours. In addition, we have sought market
research opportunities which
have been both fundraisers and hands-on substitutes for the lack of
a marketing course. We have
worked with local banks, realtors, software companies, and the historical
society.
On campus, the chapter has worked with a variety of other organizations,
spearheading the annual
business week. We have helped bring in the keynote speakers,
who have included a CFO for a
major food wholesaler, the director of Strategic Marketing at General
Motors (whom we heard
speak in New Orleans at the AMA Conference), one of the vice presidents
for Motorola (whom
we met at a professional chapter meeting) , and the head of the Budweiser
advertising account.
We were also instrumental in establishing “Business Tuesdays.”
In collaboration with the other
business clubs on campus, Chapter President Monica Hultgren set up
a schedule which rotated
presentations so that Tuesday was set aside for non-competitive meetings.
Her efforts won us a
plaque for Outstanding Programming in 1995.
A similar spirit of cooperation with other chapters has marked our history.
We have gone to the
collegiate conference with Illinois State University, for example;
in conjunction with the
professional chapter, IWU president Neil Rubenstein established a close
relationship with the
other presidents (who met at the professional chapter meetings), which
culminated in our hosting
a central Illinois collegiate chapter conference in 1996.
At least one member of the chapter has won a spot at the Direct Marketing
Educational
Foundation Collegiate Institute every year.
The chapter size has varied from the required 25 to 50. Its graduates
have gone on to work for
such major corporations as Motorola and Kodak, as well as “different”
including public relations
for a county police department in the Chicagoland area.
We look forward to celebrating our tenth anniversary, but we are proud
to have been a part of the
history of the Central Illinois professional chapter. Indeed,
they have been helpful in our chapter
meeting its own goals.
