Photo caption: Sport administration alumnus Dalton Coppola (M.S. ’25) had the opportunity to work with the Emory University’s Athletic Communications Office for his capstone project, giving him hands-on experience and providing high-quality research findings to Emory.
story by Claire Miller
How can smaller sport organizations and school athletic departments best use social media to promote their work?
This was the question at the heart of Dalton Coppola’s (M.S. ’25) capstone project in the sport administration master’s program.
“It’s a time-consuming part of our jobs that fell into the communication team’s lap,” said Coppola, who worked with the Emory University Athletic Communications Office for his project. “Rather than sinking hours into social media that wasn’t worth the time, I set out to find out what would best serve the department while still promoting our student athletes.”
In compiling and analyzing social media data, he learned more about which factors most influenced engagement on different platforms and found that posts featuring student athletes’ personal stories resonated most with audiences.
“Telling the story not just of our teams but our student athletes is a huge component of social media,” said Coppola, who graduated this spring and now works as a communications assistant for Syracuse University Athletics. “I didn’t realize how important it was to promote student athletes and their stories directly. It’s something I’ve carried with me into my professional career and helped me implement successful strategies in the real world.”
Coppola is one of several students in the sport administration master’s program who have the opportunity to conduct research at a local school, college or sport organization while completing their degree.
Every year, Assistant Professor Lauren Beasley and Professor Beth Cianfrone receive grant funding from partner schools and organizations to support students’ academic studies while they complete a research project on site.
“We’re one of the few universities in Atlanta with a sport administration master’s program, and there are a lot of schools who need graduate assistants to work in their athletic departments,” said Assistant Professor Lauren Beasley. “At the end of two years of work, students have completed research overseen by Dr. Cianfrone and me to help the organization improve in a certain area, such as marketing analyses or operations efficacy research.”
Students can also submit their completed research for publication in an academic journal and/or present it at an academic conference.
These are exactly the kind of hands-on experiences that benefit both the sport administration graduate students and the organizations they work with.
“It’s the best of both worlds,” Cianfrone said. “Students are learning on site and applying what they’re learning in class, and we provide their research results back to the organization so they have best practices and can improve on what they’re currently doing.”