UCA President Houston Davis presents CLAWS award to Beta Alpha Psi Vice President Daniel Wheeler and Vice President Kaidan Zheng.
By: Aurora King
Office of Media Relations
Beta Alpha Psi received the Bear CLAWS award at the October meeting of the University of Central Arkansas Board of Trustees.
Beta Alpha Psi is an international honor society for accounting, finance and information system students and professionals. Founded in 1919, the organization now has over 300 university chapters comprising more than 300,000 students.
The Theta Lambda chapter of Beta Alpha Psi at UCA focuses on honoring scholarship, professional development and community service. At the time of the meeting, UCA’s chapter had 11 members and 26 candidates for membership.
Accepting the award on behalf of the Theta Lambda chapter were Kaidan Zheng, president, and Daniel Wheeler, vice president.
The organization operated as a mission-based chapter until 2007. In 2008, they received the Distinguished chapter designation and moved up to the Superior chapter ranking the following year. They have maintained this designation, meaning the chapter has met the highest requirements for chapter and member involvement, since then.
Members of the chapter have competed in the Best Practices competition at the mid-year conference each year since 2007, excluding 2010. UCA’s Beta Alpha Psi received first, second or third-place rankings in 20 competitions at the mid-year conference.
Of these 20 competitions, the chapter was ranked first 12 times since 2007. These first-place rankings made the chapter eligible for competition at the annual Beta Alpha Psi meeting.
At the national level, the chapter earned third-place rankings six times and first-place rankings three times. The chapter won second place in the “Art of Change” category and first place in the “Art of Engagement” category at the annual meeting this year.
UCA faculty, staff and students can complete this form to nominate an outstanding student leader or a student group for a CLAWS award.
