Building The Isenberg Advantage Building The Isenberg Advantage

The Isenberg Advantage:
Exceptional Students; Extraordinary Accomplishments
Commencement Celebrations Emphasize Past Accomplishments, New Beginnings
A near-perfect spring day greeted the Isenberg School’s graduating
seniors and their families at the UMass Amherst campus’s 138th
undergraduate commencement ceremony on May 24th. During the
event, the University awarded bachelor’s degrees to 4,000 candidates,
900 of them from the Isenberg School.
Following the ceremony, Isenberg School graduating seniors and
their parents gathered in a spacious white tent outside the stadium for
the school’s own celebration. Rather than viewing commencement
day as an ending, graduates should consider it “a time of beginning,
a day of beginning,” emphasized undergraduate dean and master of
ceremonies Carol Barr.
Dean Barr noted that earlier in the day at Undergraduate
Commencement, three Isenberg School graduating seniors had
received special campus-wide awards. Finance major Ryan
Durkin ’08 and operations management major Brooke Naylor
’08 joined nine other honorees from around the campus as
21st Century Leaders. The award recognizes graduating seniors
with exceptional records of achievement, initiative, and social
awareness. A third Isenberg School senior, finance major
Adam Ferrarini ’08, was one of two Jack Welch Scholars, a
full-scholarship award created by the GE Foundation in honor
of UMass alumnus and former GE Chairman Jack Welch ’57.
The three honorees, observed Barr, came from a single Isenberg
School department—Finance and Operations Management.
Next, Dean Barr presented the School’s own Senior Leadership award
to 14 students for their exceptional leadership and service within the
School. Nominated by the School’s faculty and staff and chosen by
a committee within the School, the honorees included the following
graduating seniors:
Nathan Barksdale, Andres Barrera Muñoz, Nathan Bousquet, Jason
Davis, Ryan Durkin, Megan Flaherty, Whitney Lee Keller, Sami Korna,
Eric Mish, Brooke Naylor, Kelly Nussdorfer, Daniel Robert, Michael
Schiraga, and Jessica Sherwood.
Isenberg School Students Honor Springfield
Community Heroes
During the fall semester, 16 sport management students teamed
up with community leaders in Springfield to coordinate the
annual Key Players project, which honors ten Springfield area
men of color—the Key
Player Ambassadors.
The ambassadors
include artists and
athletes, educators
and ministers,
businesspeople and
community organizers—
all of whom have
enriched the lives of
Springfield’s children
The 2008 Key Players Ambassadors and their community.
Besides coordinating the Key Players nomination and election, the
students worked with the local media and conducted fund raising
in support of the project. They oversaw two events that honored
the ambassadors—a half-time ceremony at a Boston Celtics’
game and a testimonial dinner-reception in Springfield attended
by the ambassadors, their families, and other well-wishers. And
the students immersed themselves in the community by each
devoting thirty hours of service at family, recreation, and other
community centers.
Now in its sixth year, the Key Players project is the centerpiece
of the Isenberg School
course, Sport and Community
Relations. “The course has
multiple aims,” observes its
creator, sport management
professor Todd Crosset. “One
of them is to prepare students
for an entry-level position
after graduation in a sport
organization’s community
relations department.” The
Key Players student team
students get that preparation in the field through hands-on
experiences both with community organizations and with a
professional sports organization (the Boston Celtics). They also
learn the ropes of fundraising and interact with the local media. ”
“Key Players demonstrated the value of emotional involvement to
us both as business students and as human beings,” emphasized
senior Julie Guerra. “Connecting on that level was important to our
business education.”
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