Quinnipiac University’s School of Communications announced a new Bachelor of Arts in Sports Communications next fall, opening a wide variety of sports media careers beyond journalism.
Within this major, students will explore how they can work for sports teams in public relations, advertising, film, social media or television.
The major will not only attract students already in the communications program, but it can overlap with other majors and disciplines as well. While the idea has been in discussions for a while, the process was fast tracked this past spring in the curriculum to have it ready for fall 2025.
A committee of faculty members, led by Associate Dean Terry Bloom, gathered to hit the ground running this past spring. Assistant Professor of Journalism Nick Pietruszkiewicz is eager to present students with opportunities that they may have not known were possible.
“I think people see that there are so many opportunities in sports and it doesn’t just have to be journalism, it doesn’t just have to be PR, like all these things are available,” Pietruszkiewicz said. “I think watching the light bulb go off on a student, them saying, I didn’t think of that.”
The program will present students with career options in sports in addition to journalism that may have been otherwise unknown to them.
“What I’m mostly excited about is offering a new path for students who do love sports to really explore it and explore all the different ways you can communicate sports within the communications world,” Associate Professor of Journalism and Chair of Journalism Ben Bogardus said.
The curriculum includes basic communications requisites as well as a wide variety of new courses. Several electives offered in the graduate Sports Journalism program will now be offered as courses for Sports Communications.
“It’s really designed for students who have a love of sports, and it’s designed to teach them that sports is more than just sports reporting,” Bogardus said. “There are a lot of things you do in the communications field with sports, and we’re going to offer a lot of different electives so that they can explore what they’re interested in.”
The courses include Introduction to Sports Communications, Writing for Sports Communication, Sports Audiences and Fandom, Sports Analytics, Sports Law and Ethics, Presenting and Producing Television Sports and Crafting the Sports Feature.
New classes will also be added along the way. In particular, Bogardus hopes to bring in a course on play-by-play announcing.
“I think they’re also going to be very focused on preparing students to do jobs in sports, so that they’re ready once they get out into the world and are prepared to do those jobs,” Pietruszkiewicz said.
Though they did not face any challenges in getting the degree approved, there was a long process of getting approval from several committees. Once the committee created their plan, they first went through the School of Communications. The committee needed to ensure everyone in the school was on board and all the majors could contribute to classes.
The faculty in the SOC expressed immense support.
“I think that that was very heartening in the sense that everyone came together in the School of Communications for this, they saw the value of it, and also across the university,” Bogardus said.
This idea was then moved on to a Faculty Senate Committee which approves new programs. This committee is made up of representatives from all the schools at Quinnipiac.
“Everyone gets to see if there’s anything that they could do with it, if there’s any conflicts that they see with existing programs,” Bogardus said.
The plan is then seen by a Faculty Senate with representatives from all over the university to get the final approval before moving to the provost and through the state.
Though it is a long process, it was crucial to create the new program.
“It’s something that we really take a lot of time to do, because we want to make sure that the curriculum is solid, that the courses are something that students would want to take, but also that something the university could stand behind,” Bogardus said.
Students currently applying to the university have the opportunity to select Sports Communications as their major as the program will be available starting next fall. The new program is expected to increase interest in prospective students.
“You always want to be an attractive option for students that are picking where they want to go to school,” Pietruszkiewicz said. “I think this absolutely positions us to be even more attractive then we’ve already been.”
There is still uncertainty, however, regarding current students switching to or declaring their major as Sports Communications.
Currently the committee behind the program is still in the process of hiring a full time faculty member to teach in the program. They are set to begin looking at applications later this month.
As the program gets closer to being launched, the committee is eager to present these new opportunities to students.
“It’s a great way for students to do something that they love, but still get a valuable skill that they can apply to other jobs in the workplace once they graduate,” Bogardus said.
