From left: UMSL Beta Alpha Psi officers Michael Davis, Linda Lam, David Farnham, Nayesha Sullivan, Cheyenne Kemp and faculty advisor Johnna Murray. (Photo courtesy of Johnna Murray)

A delegation from the University of Missouri–St. Louis’ Beta Alpha Psi chapter took a trip to San Antonio last month, but the primary purpose was not to enjoy the sightseeing and boat tours along the famed River Walk.

The group traveled to south Texas for Beta Alpha Psi’s 2025 Annual Meeting, which offered three days of competitions, keynote speakers and information sessions, among other things. Students Cheyenne Kemp, Michael Davis, Linda Lam, Nayesha Sullivan and David Farnham went on the trip, along with the chapter’s faculty advisor, Associate Teaching Professor Johnna Murray from the Ed G. Smith College of Business.

“It was a great experience,” Murray said. “They got to work with other groups. They got to make those connections all across the country and internationally. They got to see what other schools do. We sat in on sessions to learn about what other Beta Alpha Psi chapters do, things that we can copy and use for our chapter.”

The national event for Beta Alpha Psi, which is an honor society for accounting, finance and information systems students, was held at the Grand Hyatt on the River Walk, with almost 900 attendees from 149 chapters, at universities from 41 states and three countries. Murray said the UMSL delegation was able to participate in the event thanks to the generous sponsorship from CPA firms Wipfli, Abeles, Hoffman RubinBrown, PwC, CLA, BDO, Milhouse & Neal and Honkamp.

“When you walk into the convention hall and see all the tables and all the faces, it really kind of hits home to you, the grandiose nature of the organization that we’re a part of and how far reaching it is,” Farnham said. “It was definitely eye-opening to see.”

UMSL’s performance was eye-opening, too.

For the 2025 VITA Awards, which recognized participation in the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance program run by the IRS, there were four levels of recognition: Superior, Platinum, Gold and Standard. UMSL was one of only eight chapters to receive Superior recognition, given to chapters that had the highest number of tax returns prepared and/or 100% of chapter members who participated in the VITA program.

“It was just amazing,” said Murray, who admitted she wasn’t quite sure what to expect because it was the first time the UMSL chapter had submitted for the award.

Five universities received Platinum recognition, nine received Gold and 10 received Standard recognition. The VITA program not only gives students real-life experience – UMSL students and alumni prepare tax returns for people who need assistance at various locations around the St. Louis region – but it provides a valuable community service. Farnham was one of the volunteers from UMSL’s Beta Alpha Psi chapter, along with Sullivan, who also attended the San Antonio event, Clayton Fair, Jackie Wilmes and Taofeeqat Shittu.

“The people from the program came to campus and gave a talk about it and the benefits of doing so,” Farnham said. “It was a great introduction to doing tax returns. These are all personal returns, so you’re getting an exposure to tax code, and it’s also just a great service opportunity. You’re saving people a lot of money, when they would otherwise have to give away a big portion of their return to someone for doing it for them. We can do it for free and get experience at the same time. It was a great experience.”

Senior Cheyenne Kemp, the president of Beta Alpha Psi for the 2025-26 school year, poses with an UMSL pennant at the 2025 Annual Meeting. (Photo courtesy of Linda Lam)

Kemp and Davis prepared and made a presentation as part of the Chapter Operations session; they spoke about the chapter’s community service work, which concentrated on mock interviews at the International Institute, visiting Brentwood High School to talk to students about accounting careers and volunteering at the Triton Pantry. UMSL was one of 58 chapters to participate. The presentation wasn’t judged as a competition, but it was valuable experience for the students, and it also earned the UMSL chapter points toward UMSL’s status as a Gold chapter in Beta Alpha Psi.

Farnham, Lam and Sullivan participated in the Project Run With It competition, which was sponsored by Moss Adams and Baker Tilley, the CPA firms that announced a merger this spring. Each student was given a case study to work on this summer, then each student was placed into a group with students from other universities once they arrived in San Antonio.

Farnham’s group won the Case B competition, which was “Improving Support for and Connections with Alumni” of Beta Alpha Psi. He worked with students from the University of Auckland in New Zealand, the University of Arkansas and Nicholls State University.

“We had a multi-pronged approach to coming up with a solution,” Farnham said. “It needed to be realistic, something that could actually potentially be implemented on the non-profit’s budget, and something that would take a reasonable amount of time – not years and years – to implement. We were able to come up with our idea, figure out how to communicate it and then present it. My team was really, really solid. I knew – even before we presented, but especially after we presented – that we had a really solid chance to win.”

UMSL senior David Farnham, second from left, was part of the four-student group that won one of the Project Run With It competitions. (Photo courtesy of Linda Lam)

The UMSL group arrived at Lambert International Airport in St. Louis at 4:30 a.m., and roughly 12 hours later Farnham, Lam and Sullivan were introduced to their groups and started working until late in the evening – some groups basically pulled all-nighters – on their presentations. Beyond just the numbers and creating the presentation, Farnham pointed out the value in learning to effectively communicate with people he didn’t know, in an environment that was, as he said, “a bit hectic.”

“It was a great experience on growth and communication,” he said. “And it also just helped us to think differently, to think from a client-side perspective. That’s separate from the financial reports or stuff that accountants traditionally think about. It was more of a consulting project.”

As part of his team’s win, Farnham earned $1,000 for the UMSL chapter.

“Our students did a fantastic job,” Murray said, “and they are already planning for next year’s competitions.”