As the Center for Sport Leadership welcomed the newest cohort to campus for their first day, we also welcomed back five alumni who played an important role in introducing students to the CSL.
The alumni, joined by faculty and staff, led small group discussion on the CSL’s five core values: Accountable, Authentic, Collaborative, Empowering and Global-Mindedness.
“Over the summer, we gave a lot of thought to the message we wanted to get across to the new students on their first day,” said Carrie LeCrom, Executive Director. “There’s a ton of information to share about the CSL but we asked, ‘What’s most important?’ Our core values are the foundation of program. It made sense to start there. We thought we could amplify the message by bringing in five accomplished alumni who are living out those core values.”
Students filed into the Siegel Center and rotated among five stations, where each alum spoke on their assigned core value for about 20 minutes.
Nick Gordon (M.Ed ’14), Manager of Global Sales & Services for Formula 1, talked about Global-Mindedness.
David Hinton (M.Ed. ’13) with U.S. Department of Homeland Security, discussed Collaborative.
Lauryn Hutchinson (M.Ed. ’14), Founder and Owner of UNKWN Athlete, shared about Authentic.
Donny Lind (M.Ed. ’11) , assistant men’s basketball coach at UNC Greensboro, focused on Accountable.
Kate Ward (M.Ed. ’18), Captain of the U.S. Deaf Women’s National Soccer Team, led the discussion on Empowering.
The five alumni shared personal stories from their time as a CSL graduate student and professional examples that highlighted their core value.
“The alumni participation exceeded our expectations,” said LeCrom. “They were amazing. It was clear their message resonated with the new students and had a powerful impact. This will definitely become an Orientation Day tradition.”
