Achievement Goals

    Before the semester started, Kate and I discussed about the importance of improving communication on all fronts, among members themselves as well as between the EC and members, while emphasizing top-down transparency as a key outcome of the enhanced communication. An improvement in communication and transparency really improves the GIS experience.

    We are also focusing on cooperation with external parties; that includes increased interaction with other Chapters and with the School of Actuarial Science. We have had a few meetings with Dr. Gardner to discuss we can work together to benefit Drake students and each other. Also, communication with other Chapters has been excellent as we have gotten to know other Chapter presidents pretty well—increasing our network and expanding our dialogue with all other Chapters. On top of this, we are gauging interest on Chapters coming to Drake for our annual Leadership Conference, and there was an incredibly positive response from many of them!

    We also have some future plans for the organization that we would like to set the groundwork for. Inter-Chapter relations are a major focal point of the semester, and we want to see an increase in events among multiple Chapters in the future. We hope that this starts at the Leadership Conference next semester and grows into increased and lasting interactions among the Chapters. This allows members to reap the benefits of larger networks, have strong growth in their knowledge of the insurance industry, experience expansions of professional interactions, boosts their leadership abilities, and obtain visibly closer connections to their brothers from shared experiences.

    We really want our members to have the greatest collegiate experiences that we can provide for them. Everything we do is for the growth and development of our members; Kate and I hope to facilitate this progress in every way we can, both now and in the future. 

Sam Hehir

Co President

Fall 2016 Fall Recruitment & Activation

    This year’s recruitment week consisted of 3 events: Meet & Greet, Carnival Night, and Mini Golf. The week started off great with the meet & greet. Over 30 potential new members attended and our current members did a fantastic job at engaging in conversation and leaving positive impressions. A couple of days later, 10+ potential new members also joined us for a night of excitement at the Carnival Night event. During the event there were many carnival themed games such as a kissing booth, land-o-internship, and ring toss. Plus, many prizes were awarded to the winning teams of each game throughout the night. We wrapped up recruitment week with the Mini Golfing event which was hosted at West Grand golf in which over 30 people attended. The weather was amazing and it was really fun to further our connections with potential new members in a setting that was away from campus. Afterwards, we gathered around the picnic tables to enjoy some ice cream.

    The next day, those who had signed up for interview times had the opportunity to interview with the Gamma executive committee members. The interviews were conducted in a professional manner and each interviewee was given a 30- minute time slot. Following the interviews, the executive committee discussed and analyzed potential new members and bid were then delivered the following evening. Among those who received bids, 26 accepted. Later that week, we provided them a warm welcome at the activation ceremony where they officially became pledge members. Within the Theta class I see many potential leaders of gamma, with 5 running for pledge class president, plus 3 more who were interested but had class conflicts. Also, many have displayed interests in community service, professionalism, and brotherhood. I am excited to see what becomes of the Theta class!

 Taylor Schaben 

Director of Recruitment & Ritual

#GammaIS Developing

Professional Development finished out the semester strong! Our committee’s purpose this semester was to give members a glance into the professional world and give them tips on how to do well in it. We held interactive and informative events about once a week to fulfill this goal. One of our events was an interview workshop where members were informed about potential interview questions, and then discussed in small groups how they would answer them. With positive criticism and useful strategies, we helped the members gain a better understanding of how to ace that interview. After all, there is no job if you can’t get hired.

In addition to the informative events, it is necessary to have good teamwork skills. More likely than not, you will communicate with people every day in the workplace. For one of our teamwork events, Escape Room, we had teams try to break out of locked rooms by solving a series of puzzles. The puzzles could not be solved alone. The better the team worked together, the more efficient the team was in escaping from the room. Escape Room was a fun event with an underlying skill builder. It’s important that we continue to help the members grow in these ways. I look forward to some new exciting professional events to come in the next semester!

Alex Adler

Director of Professional Development

#GammaIS Celebrating Itself

    The second half of this semester just flew on by! My committee and I kept busy with some of Gamma’s most exciting events! This included Gamma Jeopardy, Initiation, and Graduation. Aside from those events, we also got to award the Big / Little Bonding Competition champions! Congratulations to Kew and Ashlyn! They submitted 50 photos throughout the semester and proved that they were truly the best big and little!

    Gamma Jeopardy was a new event to be held under Recruitment and Ritual. The goal of this event was tailored towards educating the pledges about all things Gamma. They learned some things about the Chi Chapter, Grand Chapter, GIS on Social Media, and much more. Not only was this helpful to the pledges, but it scraped off some rust for our active members!

    Initiation was an exciting night! But like almost all of our rituals it is very hush hush. What I can say is that I am very happy that Gamma got to initiate 11 wonderful people into the organization. I am also so proud of each member of the Eta class! Gamma is growing!

    While we gained 11 wonderful members, we also had to say goodbye to 12 of our seniors this year, including the last of the Alpha class. Gamma Gradation was such a bittersweet day. It was so easy to be excited and say congrats to our seniors, but it was hard not to shed a tear or more to see them leave. These seniors have been more than just members in Gamma. They have been our friends, our family, our role models, the reasons we laugh, the reasons we smile, and the reasons why we fell in love with Gamma. With Graduation, we sent them off into the real world to make us proud to call them our alumni. Congratulation class of 2016! We will miss seeing your faces at least once a week.

With Gamma Love,

Krista Hutchinson

Director of Recruitment & Ritual

#GammaIS Leading

    

    Good day to all those reading this post.

    So this year we held our second conference on Drake’s campus, the GIS Actuarial Conference. We had six different speakers come in to talk to us about the actuarial/insurance profession, and overall it was a great success. However, it was not easy in the beginning. Speakers didn’t respond to our e-mails, and the committee scratched their heads about how to publicize the event on campus and what topics to have our speakers present. But slowly, things started falling into place.

    Firstly, we were able to get a great deal for the lunch Sodexo provided, and people genuinely enjoyed the buffet set out for them. We also invited DASS to the event, and this really felt like a right move in terms of letting more actuarial science majors on campus know what Gamma Iota Sigma is about and the kind of events we host. Technical aspects were taken care of well in advance, and in the end, we were able to secure the right number of speakers so that there would be a good selection of topics at each speaking session.

    This year our speaker lineup was diverse in the topics they covered, and we could tell from the packed rooms that they were well-received. Topics included working as an actuary outside the U.S., the Excess and Surplus Lines industry, how actuaries work with other professionals in the insurance industry, and the meaning of being an actuary. We were also able to get a hold of their presentation slides, which were uploaded to our website under member resources. So if you couldn’t attend the conference, or if you wanted to see what the other sessions were about, be sure to go check it out.     Finally, I just want to thank the Professionalism committee again for all their hard work. Without them, this event wouldn’t have been able to go as smoothly as it did.

Mickey Kian Ngiap Chew

VP of Professionalism