Grace College, Winona Lake, Ind., is expanding the Sport Management Program to include five new majors. Debuting in the fall 2012 semester, the new majors will include Exercise Science, Facility and Event Management, Sport Marketing, Sport Media and Sport Psychology.
A task force was formed in 2011 with the objective of evaluating Grace’s academic offerings in order to identify new academic program opportunities, as well as ways to revise current offerings to better align with market demand and career potential for students. The task force identified the Sport Management Program’s potential for exciting expansion opportunities, appealing to students who desire careers in sports, health and fitness fields.
The new majors will open up a variety of career options for students, including personal training, event management, sports journalism within a variety of media, sports psychology, coaching and sport marketing, among many others.
Dr. Darrell Johnson, faculty advisor for Sport Management majors, is thrilled with the expansion of the program. “The new majors being offered will allow us to open up Grace to a whole new demographic of students desiring to enter the health and fitness industry. The Sport Management Program has been cultivating applied learning opportunities for the past five years, and we’ll apply that same hands-on learning emphasis to our new majors,” Johnson says.
The Sport Management Program has 70 students and is the fastest-growing major on campus.