Top College of Business Students Inducted Into Honor Society

Each year, the top College of Business (CoB) students are initiated as members of the prestigious Beta Gamma Sigma (BGS) honor society. Seventeen students and one CoB faculty member were honored at the induction luncheon on Thursday, April 5 in the Strand Union Building on the Montana State University (MSU) campus. Only the top 10% of juniors and seniors and the top 20% of the graduate accounting students in the Masters in Professional Accountancy (MPAc) program are chosen as initiates. BGS, started in 1913, provides the highest recognition a business student anywhere in the world can receive in an accredited, Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), undergraduate or master’s program.

The induction ceremony began with a welcome from Dr. Susan Dana, BGS advisor and then the 2011 BGS officers stepped up to the podium to tell the inductees about BGS and what it means to be a member. Ben Scott, VP of Programs, gave the statement of “Beta” which means honor; Jodie Kunesh, President, gave the statement of “Gamma,” meaning Wisdom and Loretta Hemingway, VP of Membership, talked about “Sigma,” meaning earnestness. The inductees then recited the BGS pledge, received their certificates and were inducted as the newest group of BGS members.

The ceremony continued with the presentation of the Beta Gamma Sigma Professor of the Year Award to Dr. Marc Giullian, CoB associate professor of accounting. Prior to coming to MSU in 2001, he served on the faculty of the University of Louisiana-Lafayette for six years and as acting Department head for one. Giullian currently teaches courses in financial accounting at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. He is a mentor to many of the accounting students and has been award numerous teaching awards while at MSU. Giullian also serves as the coordinator for the accounting option.

BGS also recognizes a chapter honoree each year. This year’s honoree was Scott Holton, CoB alumnus and partner in Rudd & Company, PPLC. Prior to joining Rudd & Company in 2004, Holton gained his auditing experience from PricewaterhouseCoopers, LLP in Portland, Oregon. He is a licensed CPA, a certified fraud examiner and a member of the Montana Society of CPAs. Holton also serves on the CoB Accounting Advisory Council and is an active member in the Bozeman Sunrise Rotary Club.

Holton talked to the inductees about the BGS traits and what they mean to him as a professional, a CPA and an employer. He followed up with five important pieces of advice:

1. Get involved and stay involved.
2. Be true to yourself.
3. Don’t forget to work hard.
4. Continue to recognize that not everything is “business” and that fun and friendships are equally important.
5. Be someone you want to work with.

He left the attendees with a final quote from Thomas Jefferson, “I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.”

2012 BGS INDUCTEES
Masters: Tera Goolsby, Mitchell Wallace, Samuel Widener*, Kari Worum
Seniors: Kristin Abhold, Christopher Armagost, Ryan Bovy, Mingwei Chen, Ashley Kent, Hunter Metcalf, Lynnea Nelson
Juniors: Grant Ganoom, Nethia Lavering, Amanda Powell, Kaci Shea*, Alyssa Sipes, Dmitry Trubachenkov

* in absentia