2021 Outstanding Student Organization

SOM STUDENT CLUB RECOGNIZED AT UM-FLINT

By Alexis Menard (BBA, 2021)

While the past academic year was full of challenges and unknowns, a student organization at the UM-Flint School of Management rose above these obstacles to meet their goals in a virtual environment and received recognition from the University of Michigan-Flint.

This past April, the UM-Flint chapter of the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) received two awards at the 2021 Celebrating Wolverine Excellence ceremony, hosted by the Department of Student Involvement and Leadership. SHRM was recognized as the 2021 Outstanding Student Organization. Co-advisors for SHRM, Brian Blume, professor of organizational behavior & HR management, and Gerald Knesek, lecturer of management, were presented with the Outstanding Student Organization Advisor(s) awards.

“One of the goals of SHRM is to help students make connections and advance in their professional/personal development,” said former SHRM president, Alexis Menard (BBA, 2021). “SHRM has the best faculty advisors helping us meet our mission. I’m delighted Brian and Gerry received the Outstanding Advisor Award because they really deserve it. They are both educators who go above and beyond to support students in and outside of the classroom. They are great mentors and I have been inspired and impacted by both of them.”

SHRM’s mission is to help students at UM-Flint by providing educational, networking, volunteer, and leadership opportunities to their members. SHRM also assists all UM-Flint students with resumes/interviewing, offering student professional development, and more to help students efficiently prepare to get an internship or career opportunity while in college.

The organization hosted seven monthly events in the 2020-2021 academic year, ranging from networking, panel discussions, speaking engagements on hot topics, and resume improvement. UM-Flint students and SHRM members also participated in their first SHRM case competition at SHRM UMICH and Greater Ann Arbor SHRM chapters.

“Although COVID-19 has impacted many student organizations at UMFlint, I strongly feel as though more people that weren’t originally able to commute to the campus have now been able to be involved,” said Blume. “SHRM has new members from around the nation and have seen engagement from students that lived one or more hours away from campus joining our virtual events.”

SHRM officers will continue to cater to all members of the UM-Flint community when the University returns in-person in the fall. The organization also has more plans to engage online with members at the UM-Flint campus.

SHRM Treasurer Erik Johnson, is working on an all-inclusive podcast that will anonymously interview people of all occupations about their careers in a tell all format. SHRM will use the stories of students and alumni to help guide members of the UM-Flint community.

Another SHRM officer, Secretary Elayna Moore, made great strides to improve SHRM’s online presence. She worked with the Office of Online & Digital Education (ODE) to create a Blackboard group so the organization can collaborate and connect with each other in between meetings and offer more networking opportunities. In fall 2021, they plan to roll out more planned content such as discussion boards, videos for new members on the missions of SHRM, and post recorded events or meeting notes.

“Overall, we were able to accomplish a lot being remote,” said Menard. “We hosted our first annual HR Alumni Panel and invited UM-Flint alumni to present their experiences. We had two alumni present from out of state in California and New York and that’s something we couldn’t have done without the technology resources the campus has provided us.”

SHRM faculty advisors, Professors Blume and Knesek, actively give responsibility to the students in the organization for daily operations, such as lining up speakers for events or advertising. The co-advisors give freedom to the members to pursue what interests them, but they also provide ideas or suggestions based on their combined expertise.

In previous years, SHRM members hosted a Rapid Resume event where SHRM members offered detailed critiques and comments on resumes before career fairs. Blume suggested SHRM members host the event virtually during the Winter 2021 semester. The students devised a plan to review resumes for two weeks in March 2021 with help and guidance from Antonio Riggs, SOM career planning counselor. SHRM officers reviewed 31 resumes of UM-Flint students from all disciplines and directly supported SHRM’s initiative that students are career-ready.

In addition, Knesek suggested that SHRM officers attend a Civility Project session to see if this would be a good fit to bring to UM-Flint.

“The idea behind SHRM is to create better workplaces where all employees thrive,” said Knesek. “The Civility Project is a forum for modeling respect for each other and opposing viewpoints. This turned out to be the largest SHRM event of the year… Overall, we had a great year thanks to the leadership provided by Alexis, the officers, and great participation from all the members. It really is the students that make the club successful.”