How university students perceive emergency management: A case for marketing emergency management

Objective: The purpose of this study was to determine if university students understood the differences between first responders and emergency management as awareness of the differences informs the individual’s decision-making processes.Design: Convenience sampling, mixed methods data collection with descriptive analysis and means testing.Setting: US, Southeastern Conference University, during summer semester.Participants: 500 convenience sampled student volunteers.Intervention: Convenience sampled, mixed-mode survey administered May to July 2017.Main outcome measures: Population sampling of a minimum of n = 372 (actual n = 500 obtained) surveys to achieve a 95 percent confidence level of p ≤ 0.05 ± 4.29 percent.Results: 19.6 percent of the participants were able to associate response and recovery with emergency management. Word association with “Emergency Management” as the trigger word produced a 35.8 percent association with disasters and emergencies. 70.4 percent of the participants attended a university sponsored emergency preparedness course, but only 44.2 percent indicated they had received emergency preparedness training.Conclusions: There was a derivation of three issues: A lack of understanding in the differences between first responders and emergency management, a non-association of emergencies and disasters with emergency management, and a lack of understanding in what emergency preparedness training is. Results point to a need for further education on the duties and responsibilities of the emergency management profession. A form of information transfer that may be productive would be to administer an awareness campaign via social marketing. Further study is indicated, using a more rigorous sampling and analysis methodology.

“Dead but Standing Erect”: Why Southern Conference Members Left to Form the Southeastern Conference

Thirteen institutions left the Southern Conference to form the Southeastern Conference during 1932. Why did these schools leave the Southern Conference? Previous historical research portrays the large size of the Southern Conference and the desire to pass academic reforms as reasons for the Southeastern Conference’s formation. This article argues that the university presidents and other administrators at Southeastern Conference institutions formed it to enhance the legitimacy of their member institutions. Throughout the Great Depression, the conference’s administrators pursued increased legitimacy by attempting to reform academic eligibility rules, allowing football games to be broadcast over the radio, awarding athletic scholarships, allowing member institutions to compete in emerging postseason football bowl games, and hiring a commissioner. This instance of conference realignment is historically significant because some of the policies implemented by the Southeastern Conference contributed to its rise as one of the top revenue-generating conferences in college athletics.

Sporting Events and the Derived Demand for Hotels: Evidence From Southeastern Conference Football Games

The impact of sporting events on local economies has been a focus of academic research for many years. Sporting events create externalities within the local economies in the form of spillover effects. This study investigates the role of Southeastern Conference collegiate football games on local hotel demand from 2003 to 2017. Fixed effects models are used to expand upon previous research by incorporating six data sources to analyze the impact of team, game, hotel, and market characteristics on hotel performance. Results indicate that the demand for hotels varies greatly according to team and opponent quality. A number of sport marketing, sport economics, hospitality, and tourism management implications are discussed for universities and industry in their communities regarding scheduling and the potential for revenue growth.

The SEC vs. the Dow Jones: A Profitable Betting Strategy in NCAA Football

This article tests the efficient market hypothesis (EMH) and the profitability of a simple betting strategy in National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) college football. We examine all games that have a point spread, from September 2003 through January 2015, for inter-conference matches involving a Power Five/Automatic Qualifying (P5/AQ) team against a Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) opponent. We further investigate one conference using these matches from 2016 through 2018 seasons. The betting strategy evidence suggests it is nonrandom and profitable to bet against the Southeastern Conference (SEC), despite its perceived status as the nation’s top conference.

Changing the Game

Changing the Game is the memoir of Jim Host, a pioneer in college sports marketing. After attending the University of Kentucky, Host spent a few years in business before accepting a position as commissioner of public information in Governor Louie Nunn’s cabinet in 1967. After an unsuccessful bid for lieutenant governor in 1971, Host founded what would eventually become Host Communications Incorporated (HCI). HCI engaged in association management before entering the far more high-profile field of college sports marketing when it gained the radio rights to University of Kentucky athletics. Host then developed the NCAA Radio Network, broadcasting games for the NCAA Division I men’s basketball tournament. Before long, HCI had developed radio networks and marketing strategies for the Southwest Conference (SWC) and the Southeastern Conference (SEC). Host began to bid on college media rights, ultimately partnering with more than thirty universities. He created the concept of “bundled rights” at the university level, whereby corporations became “official” sponsors of college athletic programs across a spectrum of media formats. In the early 1980s Host convinced NCAA executive director Walter Byers to sell corporate sponsorships for the NCAA basketball tournament. This innovation dramatically increased revenue for the NCAA and increased the popularity of the tournament. In Kentucky, Host was involved with the construction of Rupp Arena, the Kentucky Horse Park, and the KFC Yum! Center. He played a key role in bringing the Alltech World Equestrian Games to Kentucky in 2010.

The History and Evolution of the Southeastern Conference for Public Administration

The Southeastern Conference for Public Administration (SECoPA) began in 1969 in the wake of reapportionment and desegregation. The founders of SECoPA sought to promote the emergence of a new South, one that would be both dynamic and inclusive, by promoting the practice and study of public administration throughout the region. In the decades since, SECoPA has continued to host annual conferences serving the region. Through coding and analysis of annual conference programs, and using the lens of new institutionalism, this article explores SECoPA’s history and fidelity to its founding mission. The annual conferences have been responsive to concerns of public administration scholars in the region, but drastic declines in practitioner participation mirror broader trends in the profession.

Student-Athlete Career Development through Community Service: A Retrospective Study

The purpose of this study was to examine, through a retrospective lens, the effects that collegiate community service has on the career development of student-athletes under the umbrella of functional motivation theory. To do so, researchers analyzed the career development of seven former Southeastern Conference (SEC) student-athletes who were awarded membership to the SEC Community Service team through both individual and team contributions. NCAA Division-I student-athletes face hindrances through time restraints but also have resources designed to enhance academic and vocational development, such as the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s Life Skills program (formerly CHAMPS). Through phone interviews focused on reflective collegiate community service and career development, several themes emerged. For collegiate community service the most common themes were: Service Settings, Current Service, and Time Restraints. For career development, the major themes were: Working with Diverse Groups, Scholarship and Admittance into Graduate Programs, and Career Choice/Personal Values. In analysis, the majority of the discovered themes align firmly with the National Association of College and Employer’s (NACE) career readiness competencies.