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Columbia University’s Sports Management Graduate Program Welcomes New Students and Faculty for Its 19th Year

Columbia University’s Sports Management graduate program announced the fall semester’s program lineup, which began in person earlier this month.

“I am incredibly excited to welcome our new cohort of students to our Columbia family and to welcome back our returning cohorts. Orientation and the first two weeks of the semester have been terrific, with our incredibly engaged students and faculty already demonstrating their incredible prowess both inside and outside the classroom,” said Scott Rosner, director of the M.S. in Sports Management program and a professor of professional practice at Columbia.  

On August 26, 2024, the program welcomed 70 new students to the campus for a week of exciting and engaging activities. The purpose of orientation week is twofold: to foster a sense of community among the new students and to provide them with workshops that will aid in their success both within the program and in their future endeavors. The Sports Management program has a total of 133 students from 27 different countries and 23 different languages spoken. This new cohort includes two HBCU Fellows and one United States military veteran. 

We hosted several workshops during orientation week: an Excel/Statistics boot camp and workshops on Hustle, Storytelling and Presentation Skills, Listening and Self-Awareness, Leadership, and Cultural Competency, as well as an introduction to the program’s Professional Development Requirement (PDR) & Community Leadership and Service Program (CLASP) led by our facilitators Scott Rosner, Valerie Gordon, Joanna Levy, Tammy West-Bennet, Jennifer Dick, Steve Gera, Michael Aufrichtig, Vince Pierson, and Jackie Bartolomeo. Orientation activities conclude today with a Career Orientation session led by Mary Scott, Kat Castro, and Carolyne Savini. 

The program has announced both the addition of two new adjunct faculty members and the program lineup for the fall semester. New to the faculty this semester are Jamie Hill (Football Business Management) and Tom Cerny (Sports Marketing). The program is offering a brand-new course in Sustainability in Sports: Theory in Practice in conjunction with Columbia University’s renowned Sustainability Management program, as it continues its leadership role in offering a leading-edge curriculum among Sports Management programs.

The Sports Management program’s elite faculty and classes for the fall include 

Kevin Abrams (Football Business Management), Steven Angel (Fundamentals of Sports Analytics), Jacqueline Bartolomeo (CLASP), Tom Cerny (Sports Marketing), Ishwara Glassman Chrein (Sports Sponsorship and Sales), Destinee Coles (Sports Accounting and Finance), Jennifer Dick (Professional Development), Jennifer Duberstein (Sports Law and Ethics), Len Elmore (Athlete Activism and Social Justice in Sports and Internship in Sports Management), Joseph Favorito (Sports Business Communication and PR, and Industry Relations), Adam Fisher (Baseball Analytics), Jamie Hill (Football Business Management), Chris Lencheski (Foundations of Sports Management and Sports General Management: Integrating Strategy, Identity, and Culture), Michael Parker (Sports Accounting and Finance), Tom Richardson (Digital Sports Media and Marketing), Scott Rosner (Foundations of Sports Management), Sab Singh (Foundations of Sports Management), Grant Son (Sports Entrepreneurship & Innovation in Sports, Sports Marketing, Supervised Research Project: Advanced Marketing—FC Bayern Munich), Bill Squires (Sports Facilities and Events Management and Sustainability in Sports in conjunction with SUMA’s Shaun Hoyte), and Carla Varriale-Barker (Sports Law and Ethics).

Additionally, the fall program course associates include Lj Holmgren, Danny Hagenlocher, Suswara Mullapudi, Angeli Feri, Daniel Sumner, Kathryn Taylor, Christine Wixted, Alexander Cosenza, Courtney Dunn, Mandeep Brahmbhatt, Gabriel Koatz, Christopher Brown, Jessica N. Cervini, Eli Steinfield, Jacob Wolf, Donzell (Layden) Williams, Valisha Graves, and Andrew Moss.  

Columbia University’s master’s degree program in Sports Management, available part-time and full-time, trains professionals in all sectors of the sports industry by teaching specific management skills in the areas of finance, analytics, business intelligence, digital media, entrepreneurship, leadership, law, marketing, sales, communications, and facility or event management. This combination of broad-based and specific skill training is a hallmark of the program and is evident in the content and sequencing of courses. 

For more information: Joe Favorito (joefavorito2 [[at]] gmail [[dot]] com)

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