RST Starts Consulting Firm
AHS E-News Fall 2020
When the coronavirus sent students home in March under the state’s stay-at-home order, the Department of Recreation, Sport and Tourism had more to consider than moving all classes online. As businesses shut down, a number of students, many of whom were in their final semester, suddenly found themselves terminated from internships required to complete their degrees.
Dr. Mike Raycraft, clinical associate professor, and Dr. Carla Santos, head of the department, immediately recognized the need for swift remedial action. Over the course of about a week, they tapped into RST’s extensive network of alumni to round up clients for the newly created Illini RST Undergraduate Consulting (IRUC), a program of virtual consulting through which students worked on real-life problems with clients as diverse as professional sports teams, marketing agencies, and tourist destinations.
“IRUC was definitely a response to COVID,” Dr. Raycraft said, “but in retrospect, our students had a more diverse experience, access to an amazing RST network, and an opportunity to make an immediate impact using academic and professional perspectives gained from the classroom than they might have had in a traditional internship program.”
Successful and worthwhile
Instead of a typical internship experience of working individually with just one organization for an entire semester, students who joined IRUC in the spring and summer worked in teams of three with three different clients. Christian Evans, who began his studies toward a master’s degree in RST this semester, had originally planned to complete an internship with the Fighting Illini Marketing team over the summer. Through IRUC, he instead worked with Paragon Marketing Group, the Chicago Bulls, and Princeton University’s Office of Development on projects to develop alternative, safe ways of conducting product sampling during the pandemic, keep sports fans engaged in the absence of a season, while keeping students, student-athletes, and faculty safe.
Christian judged the experience successful and worthwhile, and said he gained valuable knowledge that will help him in both his studies and his career.
“The main thing I learned was that ideas have to be informed,” he said. “Creativity is important, but both Dr. Raycraft and the clients stressed how critical it is to make your ideas stronger with research.”
Read more about students’ views of their experiences here.
Professional, committed, and “all in”
Those incredible alumni included Brooke Buzard, associate director of advancement at Cunningham Children’s Home in Urbana, who cited her experience as an undergraduate student in RST as a reason for getting involved. “As an RST alum, I am always looking for ways to give back and to stay connected,” she said. She completed her degree in 2009, when the country was in a deep recession, so the challenges this year’s graduates were facing with the pandemic resonated. “It was rewarding for me to be able to shed light on opportunities for RST graduates in the non-profit sector, a path that I’m not sure many consider,” she said.
Ms. Buzard tasked the IRUC groups with helping the organization re-imagine its second-largest fundraising event, the Kendall Gill Golf Outing. “Recognizing that events will not be the same as they have always been, you can still capture some of the spirit of the events so that even in altered formats and platforms, people are still eager to attend and support,” she said. The students’ work was invaluable in keeping planning for the event moving forward while freeing up members of Cunningham’s advancement staff to focus on the organization’s major fundraising event, which was taking place around the same time. She feels the students contributed to the success of both events, and she had nothing but praise for the experience.
“I told each student that they personally were making an impact on the lives of youths in Champaign-Urbana, and they took that responsibility very seriously,” she said. “They were professional, committed, and ‘all in’ on making our event a success.”
Dr. Mike Raycraft is justifiably proud of the program. “Our students did an amazing job pivoting and adapting to the current industry environment,” he said. “Our alumni where incredibly generous with their time and talents. I was confident they would be.” He imagines that when things return to normal, some students may opt to return to the standard internship model. But he sees IRUC continuing as an alternative for students who are still defining their career interests and seeking to engage with a cross section of successful RST alums. ”’Non-traditional’ is quickly becoming the new normal,” he said.