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2010-05-02 22:40:55
La Salle business honor society chapter wins award
1. La Salle business honor society chapter wins award
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Written by Ted Bordelon Collegian Editor
When Susan Borkowski heard that La Salle’s chapter of the Beta Gamma Sigma Business Society was named the second best in the nation for 2010, she was initially pleased. The chapter advisor and professor of accounting at La Salle didn’t let the feeling of self-satisfaction stay for long, though.
“I was so excited because it meant we now had more scholarship money to give out at March’s induction ceremony, and I also knew that Dean Brazina would be able to use the honor to recruit more students for La Salle University,” Borkowski said. “But then I selfishly thought, ‘How can we get to number one next year?’”
Beta Gamma Sigma, the honor society for the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, was founded in 1913, and the La Salle chapter of the society inducted its first class in 1996.
“The award raises the profile of our chapter with national Beta Gamma Sigma executives, and of the university worldwide,” Borkowski said. “We are ranked 2nd out of almost 500 programs worldwide, which is amazing when you consider how small La Salle University is compared with some of the big powerhouse schools in Beta Gamma Sigma. When we recruit students for the business school, we can point to a business program that has received worldwide recognition from a very respected and well-known source, Beta Gamma Sigma.”
La Salle’s Beta Gamma Sigma Society accepts the top seven and ten percent academically of juniors and senior business majors respectively, and the top twenty percent academically of graduating MBA students.
“A chapter cannot be considered [for the chapter award] unless it has an acceptance rate of at least 80 percent. We have been in the 90-98 percent range for the past seven years, and last year was our first ever 100 percent acceptance rate,” Borkowski said. She added that the chapter then had to go through an intensive application process to be considered for the chapter award.
“We had to submit a very detailed dossier and application form documenting everything your chapter has done in the past year and why your chapter deserves to be recognized,” Borkowski said. “The payoff for us is extra scholarship money for the March 2010 inductees if named one of the top five chapters worldwide.”
Borkowski, who received her PhD in accounting from Temple University, has been with the program since its inception, and has taught at La Salle since 1989. La Salle offered her a job immediately after she received her degree, but she initially turned down the job because she felt that a bigger school better fit her.
“I was teaching at Rutgers in New Brunswick, and was always being told by my department chairperson that I was spending too much time with students, which was taking away from the time I should be spending on research,” Borkowski said.
“Well, that is not why I got into teaching. To paraphrase former President Bill Clinton, ‘It’s all about the students, stupid!’”
She then moved to La Salle, and hasn’t looked back since.
“The best career move I made was coming to La Salle,” Borkowski said. She added that advising for the La Salle chapter of Beta Gamma Sigma has been one of her better teacher experiences.
“I love it. It brings me back into closer contact with many of the students I have had the pleasure of teaching, and I also meet new students who have not been in my classes,” Borkowski said. “It is a way to honor the students for all their hard work. This year the cutoff was around a 3.8 GPA- that’s not easy to achieve, and BGS induction is another way to recognize all their accomplishments.”
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