The sport management department will celebrate its 40th anniversary on Saturday with their annual student-run banquet.
Catriona Higgs, sport management professor and chair of the department, said the program started in 1977 and was originally a specialization in physical education, but now there are around 300 programs in the U.S.
“Of course sports continue to evolve and as they continue to evolve, jobs emerge in those fields,” Higgs said. “Like mixed martial arts, e-sports and data analytics. It’s not just the way you tend to think about it in terms of professional sports. It’s a very wide, very broad field in terms of career opportunities.”
Brian Crow, sport management professor, said that a lot of graduates start out as managers of event management, as event marketing or as account executives. Crow said some students end up working in YMCAs as program coordinators.
“It’s varied,” Crow said. “Sometimes that part starts with minor league sports as well.”
The program at SRU was accredited through the Commission on Sport Management Accreditation (COSMA) in 2010, which aims to promote sport excellence in sport management education.
“It is the organization that pretty much approves management programs,” Robertha Abney, sport management professor said.”We are recognized as one of the top programs and that was one of the reasons that we wanted to be accredited first.”
Higgs, Crow and Abney said that the banquet is a class project, and is part of the facility and event management class.
“They put on the banquet every year and secure sponsorship,” Higgs said.
“The faculty really have limited input,” Crow said. “The students are the ones who are managing it.”
The students in the class are sending out 40 tweets about the program and reasons to attend the banquet. Some of the proceeds from the banquet will go to VeloSano: Bike to Cure Foundation for cancer research.
Crow said that over the last five years or so, the department has partnered with the organization and that they have raised $18,000-19,000. The rest of the proceeds go to awarding two students scholarships worth $750 each.
The banquet will be held on Saturday, April 8 and will start at 6 p.m. Tickets can be purchased online and are $40.
