As you progress through you academic career, it's really important that you become involved with your peers in ways that will serve you well later in your professional life.   Here are some of the organizations and activities in which SITC students are engaged.

Student Chapter of ACM

The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is the world’s oldest and largest educational and scientific society for computing professionals.  Since 1947, ACM has been dedicated to advancing the art, science, and applications of information technology.  Membership currently numbers more than 80,000 worldwide, including students in approximately 500 student chapters.

ACU has been home to a student chapter of ACM for more than three decades.  The chapter is largely self-directed, with Dr. Mike Frazier currently serving as the primary sponsor.  Chapter members annually participate in a number of extra-curricular activities.  Among the most visible activity is the annual Valentine’s Day Project, a fundraising event which consists of a computerized compatibility screening for ACU students. Others are less visible, ranging from administering computer systems and networks to competing in the annual ACU International Collegiate Programming Contest.

The many services available to students through membership in ACM are described at www.acm.org/membership/student and www.acm.org/membership/student .

ACM Programming Contest

Every year ACM hosts the International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC), which most recently has been sponsored by IBM.  The contest is structured in the following way.  Universities typically hold a local contest to identify programming teams to subsequently compete in regional contests conducted in the fall, with regional winners moving on to the world finals held in the spring.  At stake are awards, prizes, scholarships, and bragging rights!  Thousands of teams throughout the world compete each year.

For more than 30 years, ACU teams have participated in the South-Central Region contest, which typically includes about 50 teams from colleges and universities across Texas and its neighboring states.  ACU teams have a history of giving strong performances at this level, sometimes placing in the top ten.

MISfits

Dr. Brent Reeves sponsors a group of students that go by the name MISfits, which stands for Management Information Systems—Fluency in Technology.  MISfits participants have a variety of backgrounds and majors, but have a common interest in information systems.  If you’re interested in discussing current topics, investigating new technologies, and sharing ideas about what is, and what should be, in our information rich society, this might be the place for you to start!  You might even get to work on some of Dr. Reeves’ cool R&D projects.