News > Pam Ryder is awarded MIS Scholarship at Gateway to Innovation Conference in St Louis

Published: Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Pamela Ryder is awarded one of the six Management of Information Systems (MIS) Scholarships and one of her Co-op project at Monsanto receives Community Outreach Awards by Society for Information Management (SIM) on Tuesday, April 20, 2010 at the Chase Park Plaza in St. Louis. Formed by CIO's, CTO's and emerging IT leaders, academicians, and consultants, the SIM is an a not-for-profit organization of information technology experts to supports IT leaders in the greater St. Louis area. Learn more about SIM, the MIS Scholarship Award Program, and Community Outreach Awards at www.simstl.org

Ryder is currently pursuing a dual degree in Business and Management Systems and Information Science and Technology, with an emphasis in Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP). Ryder’s goal is to complete these degrees (140 required hours) in nine semesters (4 ½ years) while completing two 6-month co-op education in the field of information technology and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP).

Ryder is passionate about pursuing Enterprise Resource Planning as a specialty. Ryder said “…while I’ve been attending college, I’ve always held a part time job to apply my business and technologies in workplace in addition to help with expenses. At the beginning of my junior year, I participated in a 6-month co-opportunity experience with a St. Louis based company to learn more in-depth about how ERP applies to the real-world business, and getting hands on experience working with the SAP system, a leading ERP system.” “I will have another internship opportunity this summer with a different company, where I will again be focusing my time working with their SAP system” Ryder said.

Besides the academic aspect, Ryder is actively pursuing professional and leadership development on campus. She was the past President for Future Business Leaders of America - Phi beta Lambda during her sophomore year, a member of Society of Women Engineers, an Executive Council member of the Zeta Tau Alpha Fraternity, a member of the Cooperative Education and Internship Advisory Council, and a member of the Student Advisory Board for the Business and Information Technology Department.

Even though I am an undergraduate, my Enterprise Resource Planning professor, Dr. Bih-Ru Lea, has asked me to participate in graduate level research. We studied that undergraduate students with proper business knowledge can perform as well as graduate students who have stronger technical skills but may not have sufficient business knowledge in ERP education. We found that business knowledge played an important role in learning outcome of ERP education. To further advance my research skills, I am currently working with Dr. Lea on a research project to assess the impact of international team collaboration projects on student learning outcome in ERP education. We are currently working with students from HES Amsterdam University in Netherland on this research project.