Senior Project
Description of ProjectMy senior project will incorporate sport and its writings into the liberal arts education. The finished product will be a sports journalism major, to used at the college, justified using a cultural lens, as well as using my finished products completed during my tenure at St. Olaf as a member of the CIS community. We can learn about ourselves and our world through sport, our deepest pastimes, via virtually every discipline: economics, American Studies, history, media studies, religion, psychology, English, among others.
The major itself will be rooted in this interdisciplinary approach. I will design a series of courses, and specific syllabi, to carefully select and interpret what material would be best suited to convey how sport influences our lives and how we, as Americans, not only influence the games that are played, but also influence how the games are covered through the mainstream media.
I envision the project to be personal, sociological, academic and informal. Sport is a personal thing, and to negate it as such would be doing our games a disservice – especially as such because we are centrally located in an academic setting. The courses designed will not be heavily weighed on personal reflection, but to deny that personal discovery on the playing field isn't present would be unfair. Secondly, perhaps the most profound influence of sport today – that of the impact on our society – will be explored in depth.
More than anything, my goal for the "major" will be for potential "students" to learn about the world in which they live through sport and about themselves in an increasingly dynamic and diverse world where sport has a more profound influence every day. In addition, the writings of sport – for our purposes, what others have to say on paper and on camera – can tell us about what we value as a society at one particular time in our history.
The first part of this project involved research on New Sports Media, and fans' interaction with new forms of communication. That research is available here.
American Studies Course
"The Spirit of American Sports" (syllabus) | PDF
Course Schedule (PDF)
Works Cited
English Course
"Literature in Sporting Form" (syllabus) | PDF
Course Schedule (PDF)
Works Cited
History Course
"Introduction to Sports History" (syllabus) | PDFCourse Schedule (PDF)
Works Cited
Media Studies Course
"Sport, Culture and the Media" (syllabus) | PDF
Course Schedule (PDF)
Works Cited
Senior Presentation: April 24, 2009
Buntrock 142, St. Olaf College
"The Journey to Indy: How the NCAA Tournament Represents Fun and Accomplishment, in Spite of a Sporting World Ridden by Scandal"
To download the entire presentation, which includes video, click HERE.