SUNY Cortland News

    College graduates who aspire to a career in international sport management have an opportunity to pursue the field through a newly approved, graduate-level academic degree at SUNY Cortland.
    The New York State Education Department (NYSED) Office of Higher Education recently granted SUNY Cortland permission to begin offering a new Master of Science in International Sport Management (ISM), said Nancy Aumann, the College's associate provost for academic affairs. Aumann serves as the College's liaison with the NYSED.
    The 30-credit hour degree program is designed to be full-time and to be completed in one calendar year by a close-knit cohort of up to 30 full-time graduate students. The program requires the master's candidates to complete at least six credit hours of an international residency in a country of their choice.
    "This is the first comprehensive master of science programs in this distinct specialty offered in New York State and one of only a handful of such programs around the world," said Ted Fay, the program's developer, professor and chair of the College's Sport Management Department. "We anticipate this will become an extremely attractive program both in this country and abroad."
    According to Fay, the ISM program aims to meet the needs of professionals who work in a variety of segments of the sport industry in both the for-profit and non-profit sectors, both in the U.S. and internationally. The degree would attract those who are interested in career advancement in areas such as sport marketing and communications, event and facility management, sport law, labor relations and risk management, information technology applications in sport enterprises, international sport, sport finance and fiscal management.
    Fay said the roots of this program evolved from his 20 years of participation in sports at the Olympic and Para-Olympic level.
    "I was seeing a gap in intercultural competence and global awareness," he said. "One goal of this program is to develop greater inter-cultural competencies so students are able to effectively work in multi-cultural work environments that transcend national, ethnic or sectarian boundaries.
    "The program balances theory and practice, with each graduate gaining a firm understanding of the unique management, business, cultural perspectives, ethical and legal foundations of the field of international sport management," he said.
    Fay oversees the program within the College's School of Professional Studies and also serves as international coordinator, advising students with respect to their international studies. Associate Professor James Reese Jr., graduate coordinator for the Sport Management Department, advises students enrolled in this major on aspects of their studies within the U.S. Four additional sport management professors as well as various adjunct faculty specialists round out the faculty for the new program.
    "Some graduate students plan to start new careers in this field but others will be sport professionals who wish to upgrade their skills or advance professionally," Reese said. "We accept students from many other undergraduate backgrounds than sport management or kinesiology or physical education."
    In fact, the program has drawn the interest of potential students who, as undergraduates, studied fields as diverse as economics, political science, international studies and business, Fay added.
    "Our questions to prospective students would be, 'Do you have a passion for working in the area of sports?'" Reese said. "Because the ones who are passionate are the ones who are going to make it in this field."
    The M.S. in International Sport Management builds on SUNY Cortland's existing undergraduate and graduate programs in sport management. The undergraduate curriculum currently has enrolled more than 400 majors. The College's two-year-old M.S. in Sport Management currently enrolls 64 students from the U.S. and abroad.
    The program complements the College's current graduate offerings in sport management, kinesiology, physical education and recreation and affords potential collaborations among these programs.
     Eight students from the U.S. and abroad are enrolled and began taking the courses when the semester started on Aug. 25, Fay said. However, the program is not expected to reach its full enrollment target until Fall 2009.
    Students are most likely to affiliate with the London Metropolitan University in the United Kingdom or the German Sport University of Cologne, both of which have longstanding ties with SUNY Cortland. London Metropolitan offers its own master's degree in international sport management, which was developed in collaboration with SUNY Cortland.
    Fay is working to establish for the program formal connections with at least one higher educational institution on each continent or sub-region of the world.
     Additionally, SUNY's network of international university affiliations provides more than 400 alternative programs for the students to consider for their study abroad requirement, added Lara Atkins, assistant director of the James M. Clark Center for International Education at SUNY Cortland.
    "We advise students to go on the SUNY Web site to explore these opportunities," Atkins said. "The Clark Center is here to help students with all the usual aspects of traveling abroad."
    Students in the new program will take at least 12 of the required 18 credit hours of core sport management courses infused with international topics at SUNY Cortland. They will also complete six credit hours that focus on their particular area of interest. For the remaining six credits, they can choose to write a master's thesis or complete a capstone field experience in either the U.S. or another country.
    The six required credit hours of international residency could be accomplished in various ways, Aumann explained. These include as an internship, by collecting data on a thesis from a university or an organization or by completing graduate classes in another country, or a combination of the above. The scholars need not limit their international studies credits to six.
    However, the international university must be selected through the recommendation of the ISM international coordinator with the approval of the department chair and dean of professional studies.
    A student could select for approval a foreign university within the College's connections, tap into Fay's extensive relationships with many international universities or recommend an institution abroad of their own choosing.
    "He knows which individuals to contact and can use his personal relationship to make it easier for the student," Aumann said.    
    Although envisioned as a one-year program with the same group of students proceeding in the same timeline, provisions would be made to accommodate students whose circumstances require them to enroll on a part-time basis, with the expectation that they would complete the program within two years, she added.
    For more information, contact Fay at ted.fay@cortland.edu or (607) 753-5537.