This schedule is subject to change. Please contact us if you have any questions.
Tuesday, June 19
- 0.4 NIRSA CEUs
- Tuesday, June 19 • 1:00pm – 5:00pm
- Diplomat I, II, III
Are you looking to enhance the officials training on your campus? Does your campus need additional training in a specific sport? Attend the preconference “Train the Trainer” to learn more about training officials on your campus. The session will cover qualities to look for in officials, running trainings for various staffing structures, utilizing evaluation to continued development, and a number of different training methods. You will have the option to select two specific training session to attend in basketball, flag football, soccer, or volleyball.
Learning Objectives:
- Learn what characteristics are important for all officials, regardless of the sport
- Learn how to plan and organize your officiating training sessions through effective teaching methods for flag football, basketball, soccer, and volleyball
Wednesday, June 20
- Wednesday, June 20 • 8:00am – 9:45am
Stop by the NIRSA registration desk to pick up your name badge.
- Wednesday, June 20 • 9:00am – 9:45am
- Diplomat IV, V
All are welcome to attend this informal meet & greet geared towards welcoming new attendees to the Intramural Sports Institute. Come and introduce yourself to colleagues you’ll be getting to know better over the course of the week and expand your networks. Coffee & Tea will be served.
- Wednesday, June 20 • 10:00am – 11:15am
- Diplomat I, II, III
The 2018 NIRSA Intramural Sports Insititute is happy to have Randy Fox as its Keynote Speaker! His focus is team-building and advocating for the potential in all in order to turn everyday people into superstar leaders. His leadership expertise emphasizes interpersonal value systems and productivity, believing that from one the other naturally follows.
- Wednesday, June 20 • 11:30am – 1:30pm
- Hanna’s Grille & Bertrand’s
Join us for lunch while sharing ideas of things you do on your campus to help your programs succeed!
Program Administration; Student Development
- 0.1 NIRSA CEUs
- Wednesday, June 20 • 1:45pm – 2:45pm
- Diplomat I, II, III
- Ashley Lax, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Abby Van Note, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Victoria Landron, Uuniversity of Wisconsin-Madison
It is becoming more and more common for programs to move away from GA and intern positions in favor of full-time positions. However—especially in competitive sports models—this sometimes leaves an administrative gap. Many programs must rely on student employees for administrative needs. This presentation will show you how to structure your program to give student employees the tools, and power, to run a successful competitive sports program.
Target Audience: New Professional-Generally, 0-5 years of professional experience.
Core Competencies: Programming; Personal & Professional Qualities
Learning Objectives:
- Articulate the benefits of empowering student leaders to administer program needs.
- Understand the support and structures student leaders need to be successful.
- Identify one way to empower student staff in your current program structure.
Program Administration; Student Development
- 0.1 NIRSA CEUs
- Wednesday, June 20 • 1:45pm – 2:45pm
- Diplomat IV, V
- Mark A. Williams, University of Notre Dame; Arianne Judy, University of Notre Dame
In a light—and hopefully entertaining—approach, this presentation will explore the various roles or “hats” that leaders in collegiate recreation may assume.
Target Audience: New Professional-Generally, 0-5 years of professional experience. Mid-Level (Manager)-Generally, 5+ years of professional experience.
Core Competencies: Personal & Professional Qualities
Learning Objectives:
- Identify different leadership roles, styles, and duties as they pertain to collegiate recreation.
- Gain some understanding of how to apply knowledge from this session toward the work they do with students and professional colleagues.
- Identify how the different styles my be applied and used in their own career development, as both intramural sport and collegiate recreation professionals.
Officiating; Student Development
- 0.1 NIRSA CEUs
- Wednesday, June 20 • 3:00pm – 4:00pm
- Diplomat I, II, III
- Andrew Rampe, University of North Carolina at Wilmington
Advancing into your first professional job can come with some challenges, but ultimately your program will grow under your guidance. Being mentored and being a mentor will allow your program to sustain growth during this transitional period. Join our discussion as we highlight some successes and tribulations of transitioning new professionals into their first roles. We will discuss the importance of having great people in place to help out during a time of change—not only new professionals, but graduate assistants as well as undergraduate students.
Target Audience: New Professional-Generally, 0-5 years of professional experience.
Core Competencies: Philosophy & Theory; Personal & Professional Qualities
Learning Objectives:
- Identify at least two challenges new professionals face when entering a job.
- Learn about the importance of finding a mentor and the importance of mentoring new professionals in your first job.
- Learn at least two ways to become a successful professional in your first job.
Officiating; Program Administration
- 0.1 NIRSA CEUs
- Wednesday, June 20 • 3:00pm – 4:00pm
- Diplomat IV, V
- Shane Conti, University of Massachusetts- Boston
Reducing the rate of forfeits will always be a challenge for intramural sports programs. This presentation will introduce how UMass Boston’s unique challenges and think-outside-the-box mentality has led to an intramural policy overhaul. Our programming philosophy of “Games Played” pioneered our Nomad Rule, which is directly responsible for a Spring 2017 forfeit rate under 4%.
Target Audience: Mid-Level (Manager)-Generally, 5+ years of professional experience.
Core Competencies: Programming; Philosophy & Theory
Learning Objectives:
- Discover how the intramural philosophy of “Games Played” has completely reshaped and redefined how the intramural sports program at UMass Boston operates.
- Learn how the Nomad Rule has been extremely successful in crushing the intramural forfeit rate at UMass Boston, along with ideas on how to implement it on other campuses.
- Discuss other unique challenges and approaches to reducing forfeit rates.
- Wednesday, June 20 • 4:00pm – 4:30pm
- Diplomat I, II, III, IV, V
Take a quick break between sessions to grab a cup of joe!
- Wednesday, June 20 • 4:30pm – 5:30pm
- Diplomat IV, V
This expert panel will be made up of seasoned individuals with varied backgrounds in campus recreation. During this panel discussion you will hear examples of personal experiences centered around certain hot topics dealing with intramural sports. This will be a great opportunity for attendees to come listen and to learn from accomplished and well respected colleagues in our field.
- Wednesday, June 20 • 6:00pm – 9:00pm
- Champps Americana | 1240 S Moorland Rd, Brookfield, WI 53005
College Promo is happy to be able to sponsor a social for all NIRSA IM Institute attendees. There will be appetizers and drink tix along with free Comfy Tees and other giveaways from 6-9 and Champps Americana!
Thursday, June 21
- Thursday, June 21 • 7:30am – 8:30am
Stop by the NIRSA registration desk to pick up your name badge.
- Thursday, June 21 • 8:30am – 9:30am
- Diplomat IV, V
This roundtable will feature breakout discussions groups with intentional topics addressed from the round table survey. Breakout discussions will be led by committee members. This format will resemble the IM Roundtable flow at national.
Officiating; Student Development
- 0.1 NIRSA CEUs
- Thursday, June 21 • 9:45am – 10:45am
- Diplomat I, II, III
- Sheena Harvey, University of Nevada, Reno
Intramural sports participation continues to be popular among collegiate recreation programs across the nation. Behavior and sportsmanship policies affect the behavior of the students who voluntarily participate in intramural programming. Though changes have been made to the scope and frequency of sportsmanship policies, an area of concern for many collegiate recreation intramural sport programs is whether the proper disciplinary action is being applied when a student violates program behavior and sportsmanship policies. College and university intramural programs typically enforce standards of good sportsmanship; students are informed about them before play and there is an agreement that policies and behavior expectations will be upheld. “Research results have suggested that participation in campus recreational sports significantly predicted a sense of community within diversity and acceptance factor (Elkins et al., 2011, p. 24).” While much of sports behavior research has set its focus on the effects of applied behavioral techniques on athletes, there has also been an increasing number of behavioral sports researchers directing the attention to analyze the effects of coaching/teaching behavior on participants (Donahue et al., 1980). Aspects of our society have shown that there is a lost regard for the purity of sports, which makes the effort to epitomize sportsmanship within any sports program beneficially important. This is especially true for collegiate recreation intramural sports programs (Tong, 1991). In an effort to address and identify the best practices for sportsmanship and behavior issues within intramural sports, it will allow collegiate recreation programs to create their own return to play policies and efficiently enforce the issues that may arise within their intramural program.
Target Audience: New Professional-Generally, 0-5 years of professional experience. Mid-Level (Manager)-Generally, 5+ years of professional experience.
Core Competencies: Programming; Philosophy & Theory; Research & Evaluation
Learning Objectives:
- Learn effective teaching practices for student officials in the area of sportsmanship behavior violations and how to address them before, during, and after game play.
- Review documented examples of intramural participants undergoing disciplinary action which influenced the creation of an online self-paced return to a participation course.
- Recognize what resources your institution may have to bolster the needs of your program, especially regarding the type of content you can create and distribute to the participating student population.
Officiating; Student Development
- 0.1 NIRSA CEUs
- Thursday, June 21 • 9:45am – 10:45am
- Diplomat IV, V
- Klee Sellers, Oklahoma State University
According to a recent Gallup poll, 65% of employees say they don’t feel appreciated at work. And that feeling quickly leads to pervasive negativity, low morale, and (worst of all) decreased productivity. That feeling of appreciation among student employees is particularly important in intramural sports because of the amount of conflict that they deal with on a daily basis. This session will use leadership strategies derived from the 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace by Gary Chapman and Paul White along with Craig Groechel’s Leadership Podcast that are transferable to the management of our intramural student employees. Those who attend the session will learn how to show appreciation in the workplace through the analysis of their intramural student employees and understand their own tendencies in showing appreciation. The session will consist of a powerpoint lecture that includes a worksheet to determine each attendees personal languages of appreciation.
Target Audience: New Professional-Generally, 0-5 years of professional experience.
Core Competencies: Personal & Professional Qualities; Human Resources Management; Research & Evaluation
Learning Objectives:
- Discover and articulate which of the 5 Languages of Appreciation applies to yourself.
- Identify which languages apply to your intramural student employees and how to implement appreciation strategies within your program.
- Thursday, June 21 • 10:55am – 11:15am
- Diplomat I, II, III
You are invited to bring the excess t-shirts form your various campus recreation events or programs and exchange them with your colleagues and peers. Come join the frenzy of fun and get a new t-shirt in the process!
- Thursday, June 21 • 11:15am – 1:15pm
- Hanna’s Grille & Bertrand’s
Let the conversations continue over lunch!
- 0.1 NIRSA CEUs
- Thursday, June 21 • 1:30pm – 2:30pm
- Diplomat I, II, III
Coming Soon
- 0.1 NIRSA CEUs
- Thursday, June 21 • 1:30pm – 2:30pm
- Diplomat IV, V
Coming Soon
Officiating; Student Development
- 0.1 NIRSA CEUs
- Thursday, June 21 • 2:45pm – 3:45pm
- Diplomat I, II, III
- Mike Medina, Quinnipiac University
The National Federation of State High School Associations is trying to fill a recent shortage of referees, which gives intramural referees a great opportunity to advance to working higher-level games. This presentation will focus on how intramural departments can partner with local officiating organizations to help students develop their officiating skills. It will also give professionals additional resources to help train officials in sports where their rule knowledge may be weak. Using three of NIRSA’s core competencies as a guide, attendees will learn how to both partner with local organizations to train their officials and certify officials for campus organizations and promote their top officials in various sports. Focusing on case studies for students at Quinnipiac and UCONN, we will show the success of students officiating for local boards during their college careers and after graduation both on and off campus. No matter the part of the country, the need for officials is high and opportunities for students to get involved for a small entry fee are present. We plan to allow attendees to discuss the officiating opportunities in their areas and advise on how their offices can become “recruitment centers” for local officiating organizations.
Target Audience: New Professional-Generally, 0-5 years of professional experience. Mid-Level (Manager)-Generally, 5+ years of professional experience.
Core Competencies: Personal & Professional Qualities; Human Resources Management; Business Management
Learning Objectives:
- Find a local officiating board and have a strategy to get their student officials involved to help the nation-wide referee shortage
- Find a local officiating board and learn a strategy to get your student officials involved to help the nation-wide referee shortage.
- Understand the benefits of a close relationship with a local officiating board for student development and cost savings.
Program Administration
- 0.1 NIRSA CEUs
- Thursday, June 21 • 2:45pm – 3:45pm
- Diplomat IV, V
- David Peters, Florida State University
An intramural sports program often engages thousands of students on a campus every year. We offer healthy activities to participants. We crown hundreds of champions. We train and mentor dozens of staff members. But how are we communicating our impact to fellow administrators on campus? What information will impress those at higher levels and best demonstrate our programs’ important positive impact on our respective student bodies? In this session, we will discuss key indicators that many administrators are looking for in our programs. We highlight important metrics and discuss methods to obtain the data you need. We’ll look at survey methods to gather data from participants and staff. We’ll engage the audience in sharing ideas and promising practices. Running a program efficiently and training staff to the highest levels are often part of our everyday tasks. But how we tell our story on campus is critical to demonstrating our value to the campus community and the student development experience.
Target Audience: New Professional-Generally, 0-5 years of professional experience. Mid-Level (Manager)-Generally, 5+ years of professional experience.
Core Competencies: Programming; Philosophy & Theory
Learning Objectives:
- Identify the key impacts of the program you’re currently promoting to campus partners and administrators.
- Analyze the story of your intramural program to determine how it aligns with common higher education goals or priorities.
- Formulate strategies to obtain information that enhances your messaging and better demonstrates the high value of intramural programming to the university community and the student development experience.
- Thursday, June 21 • 3:45pm – 4:15pm
- Diplomat I, II, III, IV, V
Take a quick break between sessions to grab a cup of joe!
Program Administration; Student Development
- 0.1 NIRSA CEUs
- Thursday, June 21 • 4:15pm – 5:15pm
- Diplomat I, II, III
- Oscee Wheatfall III, Texas A&M University; Nicole Jackson, NIRSA
This presentation will highlight the roles and responsibilities of the NIRSA Championship Series and explain how students and professionals can get involved.
Target Audience: New Professional-Generally, 0-5 years of professional experience. Mid-Level (Manager)-Generally, 5+ years of professional experience.
Core Competencies: Programming; Personal & Professional Qualities
Learning Objectives:
- Learn how to effectively apply for a position on the NIRSA Championship Series work teams.
- Understand the role of the NIRSA Championship Series.
Friday, June 22
Budgets; Student Development
- 0.1 NIRSA CEUs
- Friday, June 22 • 8:30am – 9:30am
- Diplomat I, II, III
- Sheena Harvey, University of Nevada, Reno
Participation in recreation activities like sports can enhance a students sense of both physical and social self. Learn how to identify the key factors of your institution’s intramural sports program to emphasize the correlation between in-classroom learning and intramural sports as a co-curricular activity and key to student engagement. Participation in intramural sports continues to be popular among collegiate recreation programs across the nation where it enriches the overall growth of college students. There is, however, a specific need for physical, emotional, and moral development among these same students as well. Identifying social and cultural perspectives valued on your campus and highlighting the program areas that contribute to the co-curricular efforts of your institution creates an exciting intramural opportunity. Consider developing innovative intramural programming for your participating student population even if your budget is tight and your resources are limited.
Target Audience: New Professional-Generally, 0-5 years of professional experience.
Core Competencies: Programming; Philosophy & Theory; Research & Evaluation
Learning Objectives:
- Identify the social and cultural perspectives of your campus’ intramural student officials and intramural participants.
- Review sport program policies, rules, and specific training practices to more fully understand intramural sports as a co-curricular activity at higher education institutions.
- Learn how to enhance a campus sports culture while working with limited resources for the sake of increasing participation.
Officiating; Student Development
- 0.1 NIRSA CEUs
- Friday, June 22 • 8:30am – 9:30am
- Diplomat IV, V
- Amanda Hoffman, University of Missouri ; Zach Watson, University of New Hampshire
The MUSIC® model of motivation was developed to help motivate students to learn. The purpose of this session is to take the components of this model and translate them to officials training. This session will review the five core components of the MUSIC model, focusing specifically on two: utility value and caring. It will take the learning theories that are fundamental to the MUSIC model and explain to attendees how those theories can apply to their individual programs. This program will also highlight how supervisors can generate a working environment that would be beneficial to their student employees. Finally, the session will include data from a study conducted at the University of New Hampshire where student officials were assessed to understand the official’s training program and how it fit with the core components of the MUSIC model. The session will demonstrate how to both recruit and retain officials and also how attendees can develop training programs to encourage better learning of the skills officials need. There will be opportunities for group brainstorming and the sharing of feedback during the session.
Target Audience: New Professional-Generally, 0-5 years of professional experience. Mid-Level (Manager)-Generally, 5+ years of professional experience.
Core Competencies: Philosophy & Theory; Human Resources Management; Research & Evaluation
Learning Objectives:
- Be able to explain the five core components of the MUSIC model.
- Demonstrate how learning and motivational theories can be applied to your program.
- Develop one strategy to incorporate motivational theories into your training.
- 0.1 NIRSA CEUs
- Friday, June 22 • 9:45am – 10:45am
- Diplomat I, II, III
- Chris Schmoldt, Florida State University; Jason Linsenmeyer, Oklahoma State University
In this session, attendees will learn how to manage concussions based on two very different staffing models. One will focus on the ability to utilize athletic trainers on site, while the other will focus on utilizing and educating student employees to assist with concussion management. In both systems, the collaboration with a Health Center on campus was critical in managing concussions. Attendees will learn how to create that collaboration to ultimately get what your program needs, based on what is available.
Learning Objectives:
- Articulate the importance of concussion management
- Identify multiple ways to handle concussions based on staffing models and ways to increase concussion awareness
- Outline strategies to collaborate on campus to meet your needs
Student Development; Technology/Marketing
- 0.1 NIRSA CEUs
- Friday, June 22 • 9:45am – 10:45am
- Diplomat IV, V
- Jose Reinoso, University of Dubuque
This session will focus on how training videos can be a quick and effective way to train student workers. After spending many hours on training intramural staff face-to-face, I was lead to start creating training videos for my staff. In this session, I’ll discuss the steps I took to create training videos, how I got student workers to help create training videos, and will present testimonials from student workers explaining why they’ve found the videos to be more effective than face-to-face training. I will also discuss ways professional staff members can implement training videos in their departments.
Target Audience: New Professional-Generally, 0-5 years of professional experience. Mid-Level (Manager)-Generally, 5+ years of professional experience.
Core Competencies: Human Resources Management
Learning Objectives:
- Learn steps to make your own training videos.
- Learn how to implement training videos in your department.
- Understand the importance of implementing training videos.
- Friday, June 22 • 10:45am – 11:15am
- Diplomat I, II, III, IV, V
Take a quick break between sessions to grab a cup of joe!
- Friday, June 22 • 11:15am – 12:15pm
- Diplomat IV, V
The 1st half will be breakout discussions with topics addressed from the institute itself and led by committee members, then the 2nd half we will come back together with final discussions. You can submit questions/issues throughout the conference with any committee member.