FRIDAY
OCTOBER 26, 2012 FRIDAY High 60, Low 45 SATURDAY High 61, Low 45
VOLUME 98 ISSUE 31 FIRST COPY FREE, ADDITIONAL COPIES 50 CENTS
EDUCATION
Courtesy of chron.com
The masters in sports management hopes to increase SMU’s brand name.
SIDNEY HOLLINGSWORTH/The Daily Campus
Pi Beta Phi and Phi Gamma Delta constructed a Fourth of July float Thursday night.
Students ‘pomp’ it up MAGGIE JONES Contributing Writer mcjones@smu.edu The SMU community is buzzing with talk of Homecoming this week. With the Homecoming festivities rapidly approaching, organizations, sororities and fraternities have joined together to build the best floats for the homecoming parade. Students swarmed the building at 6200 SMU Blvd. this week in a rush to build their intricate Homecoming floats. SMU’s 87th Homecoming theme has been decided as “Holidays” in honor of Dallas Hall’s 100th birthday. “This year 12 organizations are building floats — a record number,” Student Foundations President John Angle said. Float themes are distributed
to each organization two weeks before Homecoming weekend, leaving them pressured to finish their floats on a short deadline. “We worked with Lambda Chi to plan something that was easy for them to build in a short period of time since we only have a little over a week,” Tri Delta Social Chair Taylor Pass said. Each sorority and fraternity is paired and given a theme and challenged to include Dallas and SMU in it. The creative energy fills the building as people were given the chance to show their artistic abilities through design and pomping. “It is so important for the design to be creative, stable, practical and noticeable from a far distance. It takes the help of many people to plan the float,” SMU sophomore and Chi Omega sorority member Taylor Goerke said.
Homecoming has been a topic of discussion long before the week of the event. Social chairs from each Greek organization make contact to pair up months earlier. “I contacted Lambda Chi right before the end of the school year last year and arranged for us to be together for Homecoming,” Pass said. Float building isn’t all fun and games, as specific measures must be taken to ensure stability for the parade. Participants are given power tools and staple guns to reinforce the floats. Floats are also scheduled to be tested prior to the parade. “There is a test with the fire marshal on Friday to ensure the safety and stability of each float. The vehicle and trailer brake lights and turn signals are all tested,” Angle said. SMU’s Program Council
has planned a “Late-Night Float Building Party” for Thursday night to encourage the light-hearted atmosphere. Being the last night for pomping, students will be hard at work to finish their floats. Program Council has planned for a night of music and food brought in from places such as Whataburger. Friendly competition was apparent as each organization works diligently on their float design. First years are encouraged to take part in the homecoming events by participating in building their own Mardi Gras themed float. “Everyone loves the friendly competition that homecoming week brings,” Pass said. “It is fun to be with most of the Greek community throughout the week as everyone is building and pomping their floats”
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Simmons, Cox launch masters in sports management VALERIE THOMPSON Contributing Writer vthompson@smu.edu SMU’s Annette Caldwell Simmons School of Education and Cox School of Business have teamed up to create North Texas’ first interdisciplinary graduate sport management program. Building on top of the existing sport management program that offers both a major and a minor, classes for the full-time 12-month Master’s of Science in Sport Management (MSSM) are due to kick off in August of 2013. Students enrolled in the program will gain skills in areas such as finance, management, sports marketing and sports law among others, and will be able to advance their careers and find new opportunities in the sport industry. “The program provides students with industryspecific academic training for successful mid- and upper-level
management careers within the sport industry upon graduation,” Michael Lysko, director of the sport management program at the Simmons School, said. Set in Dallas, SMU’s MSSM program will offer students access to some of the best sport management opportunities in the nation. According to a survey conducted by the SportsBusiness Journal in 2009, the most important elements of a sports business education program are internship opportunities at 34.5 percent, and alumni connections at 15.10 percent. With 12 professional sports teams and four NCAA Division I universities in Texas, students enrolled in the new program will have access to both competitive internships and SMU’s renowned alumni connections in the sport management field. Current sport management major Dakota Warde-Levie has already experienced what the existing undergraduate program has to offer.
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EDUCATION
Nike comes to the Hilltop ENRIQUE HOLLAND Staff Writer eholland@smu.edu In a front of a large crowd of prospective and current Southern Methodist University sport management and applied physiology majors and minors, Brad Wilkins delivered an enthralling lecture on the role of science in business on Thursday evening in Vester Hughes Auditorium. A senior physiologist at Nike, Wilkins is the science lead for the digital sports department and is responsible for implementing scientific methods into the development of products ranging from apparel to shoes. “In some ways I got lucky to end up at Nike,” Wilkins said. “But once I got started, I was really motivated by how science affected business especially in sports.” Wilkins specifically works in the science lab on Nike’s campus in Oregon, where he spends countless amounts of hours studying human performance and possible enhancement through sensory technologies. One project Wilkins specifically pointed out was the
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Nike is the largest apparel company in the world. It has a market presence in shoes, sportswear and sports equipment.
Nike Ice Vest. Data showed that by using the vest in a 30 minute warm-up, runners’ times were 13 seconds faster in five mile runs. Wilkins and his team then determined that by pre-cooling, the Ice Vest could control how fast runners could run. It made sense from a science standpoint, but the business aspect was another story. “You have to look at return on investment,” Wilkins said. “It cost a lot of money to make those and we weren’t sure if we could
sell it to the masses.” Although it never hit the market, Wilkins added that he had to pitch ways on how the product could be more affordable and why it would sell. He explained that the key to being both a good scientist and businessman is the ability to be a ‘storyteller.’ “It is imperative to be a good storyteller,” Wilkins
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The new residential commons will be located next to the Dedman Center for Lifetime Sports.
New residential commons aim to improve student life, ties CHANDLER BROADRICK Contributing Writer cbroadrick@smu.edu Taylor Corrigan had a tough decision to make upon receiving her acceptance letter to SMU. She knew she wanted to be involved on campus and that community service was important to her. However, she wasn’t sure if she wanted to
be typecast as a New Century Scholar, a program based around community service. “I was worried. What if this group isn’t the one I want to be associated with. What if I don’t want to be put in this category,” Corrigan said. All worries vanished when she stepped foot onto the second floor of McElvaney Hall on
Aug. 20, 2011. Now a sophomore marketing major, Corrigan said she felt fortunate to be a part of an exclusive residential community as a freshman. “The best thing about the program was that we lived together and it made us closer as a group.
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