John Grady
(SPTE Program: Developing a "Four-Year Undergraduate Research Experience"
for Sport and Entertainment Management Students)

As an applied discipline, Sport and Entertainment Management needs to offer a practical component, which is difficult in the traditional classroom experience. Professor John Grady plans to develop a four-year research experience for students that integrates more practical experiences into their education. Students will not only study the research others have done, but they will also learn how to develop their own research projects. Through this process, they will learn how good research provides the necessary foundation for good management decision making. With this grant, he will be able to accompany his students to Rio for the 2016 Summer Olympics where they will work on a research project about Olympic marketing and sponsorship.

Grady

Joe Jones
(MSCI 599: Aquaponics)

Aquaponics is based on sustainability as the plants and animals form a closed nutrient loop that reduces water pollution, preserves water as a resource, and can produce a diverse revenue stream. The students in this course will design and build their own aquaponics system, learning not only about important sustainability principles and issues, but also how to develop a solid business plan around these principles.

J. Jones

Shelley Jones
(Extended University - PALM 495)

Service Learning (PALM 495) is a hybrid course for students in the Bachelor of Organizational Leadership and Bachelor of Liberal Studies degree programs. It is currently a pilot section, under PALM 494, but has the potential to become a permanent core requirement. Since Palmetto College is comprised of five campuses and service learning courses require a lot of research, exploration and planning to find the best hands-on learning opportunities, Professor Jones will use this grant to travel to these campuses and surrounding areas to meet with organizations and people that have the potential to offer meaningful service learning opportunities.

S. Jones

Stephanie Milling
(Dance Education Program)

The Dance Education program has an integrative learning component, but it consists mostly of observation. While observing people in the field is important, Professor Milling will create more hands-on, beyond the classroom experiences for the students so that they will be able to use pedagogical theories, practices and disciplinary content when working with diverse populations in a variety of educational environments. The students will come to understand how their discipline is impacted by cultural and political entities, develop leadership skills through participation in professional venues, and demonstrate competence in the classroom by teaching and mentoring local students.

Milling

Sarah Rothenberg
(ENHS 323/ ENVR 323: Global Environmental Health)

With a focus on climate change, the students in Global Environmental Health work with the State Museum as well as visit sites on the South Carolina coast most threatened by sea level rise. Using classroom experiences and the coastal site visit, the students, in small groups, will design and print posters focusing on different aspects of climate change, such as industrial drivers, health effects and actions to reduce warming. These posters will be displayed in the State Museum, and the students will have the opportunity to teach K-12 students about these various topics.

Rothenberg

Chandini Sankaran
(ECON 509: Economics of Sustainable Development)

Few economics courses offer students an opportunity to directly apply the theories they're learning. For this reason, Professor Sankaran designed a course called Economics of Sustainable Development (ECON 509). This grant will enable her students to apply what they've learned in the classroom to issues surrounding sustainability and transportation in Columbia. Students will collect data about transportation in Columbia by counting single-occupant cars at specific locations in Columbia during peak commuting times, and then they will propose real solutions to help lessen this number.

Sankaran

Jeremy Searson
(Athletic Training Program Clinical Education Courses:
ATEP-292, ATEP-293, ATEP-392, ATEP-393, ATEP-492, and ATEP-494)

The Athletic Training (AT) Program is evolving to connect the classroom experience with practical experiences outside of the classroom. Professor Searson, with help from some students, plans to enhance this program to include an outcomes-based assessment program, which will help students link what's learned in the classroom with experiences beyond the classroom. In order to evaluate the program, they will use the assessment platform called "Chalk and Wire." The AT Program has goals of helping students analyze and evaluate current training practices, understand social and political factors that affect athletic training, and participate in collaborative projects with others in the health profession. The addition of more robust assessment practices will help this program grow to ensure its current and future success.

Searson

Armen Shaomian
(SPTE 404: Promoting Live Entertainment Events)

Promoting Live Entertainment Events (SPTE 404) is a Capstone course that has been taught primarily in the traditional classroom setting. The field of live entertainment management is changing so rapidly that textbooks with current information are not readily available. Students in this course will be challenged to figure out promotional strategies and overcome problems in the real context of promoting events on the campus of USC. They'll find out what works, what doesn't—and then will assess and reflect on their experiences, better preparing them for their futures.

Shaomian

Amanda Dalola and Lara Lomicka Anderson
(FREN 398/ FREN 595: The Art of French Cuisine)

In order to provide more experiences for students outside of the classroom, these professors have developed a new course called Delicious France: The Art of French Cuisine. Students will analyze the role that culinary traditions have played in French history and society, compare the agricultural and culinary exports of France with those of the United States, and examine current trends in French society surrounding the rise of fast food and the reactionary slow food movement. The integrative experience culminates with a trip to the Taste of Paris culinary festival (held in Paris, France) where students will be able to watch live demonstrations and use their French language skills to interact with professionals about the topic of cuisine.

Daola

Anderson

Jeff Ranta, Dirk Brown, and Jeff Rehling
(The Strategic Communications Institute at USC)

The disciplines of Journalism, Marketing and Management all incorporate communications in their curriculum. This grant will help faculty from these areas to create the Strategic Communications Institute at USC. They'll begin this pilot program by revising sections of three existing courses (JOUR 537, MKTG 465, and MGMT 777), rather than creating a new course. This institute will expose students to a wider variety of communications problems, strategies and solutions, which will train them to become more versatile communicators.

Ranta

Brown

Rehling