Carter Henman
chenman@uwyo.edu
The University of Wyoming chapter of the American Marketing Association (AMA) offers marketing services for groups on campus and members of the community while providing opportunities for professional development for its members.
“It initiated because of a group of friends who wanted to do a club together,” Elizabeth Minton, faculty advisor for AMA and assistant professor of marketing, said. “But they’re starting to realize that you use marketing in every aspect of an organization.”
Lindsey Turner, AMA director of membership, is a junior studying marketing at UW.
“I joined because I was interested in marketing, even though it wasn’t my major at the time,” Turner said. “The people in it made it seem like a lot of fun when I first went.”
The UW chapter of the AMA is led by an executive board, which includes the president, vice president, membership director and various chairpersons responsible for things like fundraising and social media.
Turner said as membership director she serves as a liaison between the executive board and the rest of the group’s members.
Rahul Dhami, AMA president, is also a marketing major, and has been involved in the group for three years. He said that participation in the group is strong, with about 25 active members.
“We’ve increased membership slowly over the last two years,” Dhami said. “Four years ago, almost the entire club graduated and so we had to pick it up from 10 to 15 members.”
Recently, the group has focused on fundraising initiatives in order to help pay for members to attend the AMA International Collegiate Conference in New Orleans next May.
“We just did our McAlister’s night a couple weeks ago,” Turner said.
Minton said the group also raises money by providing marketing services for other organizations on campus as well as local businesses.
“We’ve created logos for people, made posters for them and simple stuff like that,” Turner said. “The Shocktoberfest owner recently approached us and he’s really interested in having us help out.”
AMA also puts together their own events on campus. For example, AMA organized a sustainable art auction in the Gardens last year to benefit the Biodiversity Conservation Alliance.
Dhami said they are hoping to host another auction next March, as well as a sustainable business forum on Earth Day.
“We’ll try to bring in three to four corporations that are big on sustainability and have them talk about what they’re doing in the community,” Dhami said.
While AMA tries to be a resource for groups on campus and the community, one of their primary goals is promoting the professional development of their members.
Turner said involvement in AMA helped her discover her passion for marketing, but her experience proves that you do not have to be a marketing or business major to gain something from the experience.
“AMA is the largest marketing group in the country, and it looks really good on a resume,” Turner said. “They really help us become professional students.”
One way they do that is by bringing in guest speakers.
“This year we had a really cool speaker from Northwestern Mutual, and they talked about salary negotiations,” Dhami said. “Those are the kinds of things we try to do, that you wouldn’t otherwise learn while you are in college.”
Minton said that a lot of activities that the AMA does in their weekly meetings, including resume building and interview skill-building workshops, are useful exercises regardless of major.
Attending the annual conference is another way that members gain skills necessary to make them effective professionals.
“It’s a valuable experience, there are workshops every day where you learn about marketing and how to grow your organization, whatever that may be,” Dhami said. “There’s also a job fair, and if you place in the case-study competitions, then employers will come after you.”
