I could have never imagined all that I could accomplish in a year and the doors that would open due to the experiences allowed to me because of the funding and mentorship of the CSFE Pre Doctoral program. I started my journey with a trip to the Green Sport Alliance Summit at Mercedes Benz Stadium in Atlanta, GA in June of 2018. This was my first experience at a mixed conference (academics and practitioners) and allowed me to experience this new world I was entering.
My second conference was to the Sport & Entertainment Venue of Tomorrow (SEVT) at the University of South Carolina in November of 2018. This afforded me the opportunity to present research that I had conducted with Dr. Brian McCullough. Our paper was nominated as a “Best Paper Finalist.”
Throughout the entire fellowship, I was working with Dr. Charles Parrish and Dr. Brian McCullough from Seattle University on research for potential publications. I am pleased to announce that in May of 2019, my first paper as lead author was published. This publication turned my experience of working with WCU’s sustainability and athletic department in conjunction with the College of Business into a functional case study that teachers can use in the classroom to help promote critical thinking to implement sustainable initiatives on a college campus. I also have 2-3 other research projects that were started during this time that are in various stages of the publication process.
One of the highlights of the was being able to present at the 15th Annual International Sustainability Conference in Vancouver, Canada. I was asked to join the research and present with lead, Madeline Orr. It was at this conference that I developed an immediate report and mutual respect with Madeline and was honored and privileged to be asked to be part of a new project she was working on. I am happy to announce that I am an original member of the Sport Ecology Group. This group and website were officially launched on Earth Day and has received tremendous feedback and press for the mission of the group.
My final conference that I will be attending is the North American Society for Sport Management (NASSM) in New Orleans in June 2019. I will be presenting a poster and talking at the Teaching & Learning Fair. This is a huge honor to have research accepted at this event. This is one of the largest and most prestigious conferences for sport management. A total of 589 abstracts were submitted with 379 accepted for presentation at the conference (64.3%). All abstracts were subjected to a triple blind review.
Pelcher, J. A., & McCullough, B. P. (2019, June). Getting athletics into the sustainability game: A self-ethnographic reflection of the fruits and experience of experiential learning. Poster presentation at North American Society for Sport Management conference, New Orleans, LA.
Last but not least, the main purpose of the Fellowship is to prepare for a doctoral program. I applied to both the University of Tennessee and the University of South Carolina. I was accepted to both programs with fully funded offers. I ultimately chose to accept the offer from University of Tennessee and will begin the doctoral program in August 2019.
I would like to say a huge “Thank You” to Dr. Lopez and all members and staff of CSFE. Without the support of this program I would not be were I am today!
Jamee Pelcher, CSFE Pre Doctoral recipient 2018-2019
Jamee Pelcher is a WCU Graduate and a Post-Baccalaureate (now called the Pre-Doctoral) Fellow with the Center for the Study of Free Enterprise at WCU. She was recently accepted into the PhD Kinesiology with an emphasis in Sport Managment program at University of Tennessee.