Sweet Briar initiates top business students into newly founded chapter of Sigma Beta Delta

Business majors Lydia Gullicksen (from left), Emily Dodson and Samantha Yew with business professors Timothy Schauer, Beatrice Stryker, Suzanne Calvert and Thomas Rogers


Sweet Briar College recently formed a local chapter of the Sigma Beta Delta International Business Honor Society and has inducted seniors Lydia Gullicksen, Emily Dodson and Samantha Yew as its founding class.

Sigma Beta Delta was created 10 years ago as a business honor society for institutions with regional accreditation. The honor society has now established more than 248 chapters in 46 states, including one international institution.

According to its website, the mission of Sigma Beta Delta is to “encourage and recognize scholarship and accomplishment among students of business, management and administration, and to encourage and promote aspirations toward personal and professional improvement and a life distinguished by honorable service to humankind.”

Establishing a local chapter of Sigma Beta Delta at Sweet Briar gives its faculty the opportunity to recognize students more broadly for their academic achievements in the department, says business professor Timothy Schauer.

“These students have demonstrated strong business acumen through multiple leadership opportunities, and the business faculty is pleased to see them honored within such a prestigious academic organization,” Schauer said.



Emily Dodson, of Richmond, is a business major with a minor in environmental studies. She interned with Allianz Global Assistance in Richmond in summer 2016 and studied abroad with the Virginia Program at Oxford this past summer, serving as the program’s social media intern. She is the Student Government Association’s Academic Affairs Committee chairwoman and serves as the 2017 student admissions ambassador chairwoman, having worked for more than two years in the admissions office. Dodson also was a varsity field hockey goalkeeper for three years and a captain for two years.

From the Bronx, N.Y., business and economics double major Samantha Yew is equally involved. She is in her fourth year on the tennis varsity team, serving this season as co-captain. She’s also a resident advisor and has for the past three years served on the Student Government Association’s Judicial Committee and as an office assistant in the Fitness and Athletics Center. In addition, Yew works as an admissions ambassador and has completed two internships with WebMD — one in Atlanta as an audience engagement/SEO intern and another at Medscape in New York City as a pricing configuration analyst intern.

A double major in business and English and creative writing, Nantucket, Mass., native Lydia Gullicksen has a lot on her plate, too: She is captain of the cross-country team, Inter-club Council vice president, secretary of Sweet Dancers — the College’s ballroom dance club — and a tutor in the Academic Resource Center. In her “free time,” Gullicksen photographs animals as a volunteer for the local animal shelter’s website and social media.

As members of Sigma Beta Delta, all three students will have access to fellowship awards, internships and international networking opportunities, among other perks.

Candidates for the bachelor’s and master’s degrees in business who rank in the upper 20 percent of their class may be inducted into Sigma Beta Delta following completion of at least half of the degree program. While almost 300,000 students in the U.S. receive bachelor’s or master’s degrees in business each year, only about 4,000 are inducted into lifetime membership in Sigma Beta Delta.