The Ohio University Center for Sports Administration has extended its partnership with the architect firm AECOM for another three years.
AECOM’s past projects include the Guangdong Olympic Stadium from the 2008 Beijing Olympics and renovations to the Mercedes-Benz Superdome after Hurricane Katrina.
The partnership allows for students in the sports administration program, which has been ranked as the top graduate program in the world by SportBusiness International for two consecutive years, to interact with professionals in the sports industry, said Preston McClellan, a graduate assistant for visual media in the Center for Sports Administration.
The partnership has allowed OU students time with AECOM professionals. The students video chatted with Bill Hanway, executive vice president at AECOM and the project leader for building of the facilities that will be used for the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics, McClellan said.
“Other AECOM representatives have come to campus three or four times a year,” McClellan said.
Students are also given the chance to work on mini consulting projects for AECOM and the ideas are often used by AECOM, said Heather Lawrence-Benedict, the newly-named AECOM Professor of Sports Business.
“That kind of access from a student perspective and from a university perspective is unprecedented,” Lawrence-Benedict said. “It really sets us apart.”
The partnership, which has existed since 2007, is the only one of its kind, said Brett Fuller, AECOM’s director of business development.
AECOM does not have partnerships like this with other universities and it does not plan to extend it to other universities, nor do other architect firms have partnerships like this with other universities.
“We selected the best and we are exclusive,” Fuller said.
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