Week of March 29, 2004
Three students from the Human Resource Management Association (HRMA) at California State University, Long Beach will compete in the Pacific West Regional of the Human Resource Collegiate Competition, also known as the HR Games, at Portland State University on April 2-3.
Seniors Mitzi Angeles, Brett Bennett and Christalle Garcia earned an invitation to participate in the regional competition after qualifying during the California competition on Feb. 28 in Pomona, Calif., where they squared off against 14 other teams from throughout the state. It is the first time a CSULB team has advanced to the regional event.
"This is an amazing opportunity," Bennett said. "We are all very excited to be able to move on and compete at the next level. It has been such a great experience so far and we feel very fortunate to be able to partake in this."
At the Pacific West Regional competition, the team from CSULB will be facing off against schools from Alaska, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Washington and Wyoming. Winners of the competition will go on to compete in the national championship, held at the SHRM (Society of Human Resource Management) National Conference in New Orleans on June 28-29, 2004.
The competition is an annual academic event designed to foster friendly competition among university students. By using a game-show style format, teams of three students from each school compete head-to-head over the course of several rounds to test their knowledge of different areas of human resource management.
The HR Games, sponsored by the SHRM, were created to offer students a fun way to prepare for the PHR certification exam and earn the title of professional of human resources.
CSULB's HRMA sent two teams to the state games with one team, comprised of Bennett, Garcia and Connie Catalon, qualifying to advance to the next round. The other team, consisting of Angeles, Jason Jacob and Tamala Marshall, won the Collegiality Award, which goes to the team that best exemplifies professionalism, friendliness and sportsmanship and significantly adds to the overall positive environment at the competition. The award was voted on by all the participants and volunteers in attendance at the contest.
SHRM is the largest professional organization committed to human resource management in the world and is the national parent organization of HRMA. HRMA is a student organization in the College of Business designed to offer students networking opportunities, supplement their coursework and aid in their professional development.