McCormack and SEEN Announce Inaugural Graduate Fellowship Recipients

The Mark H. McCormack Department of Sport Management within the Isenberg School of Management at UMass Amherst and Sports & Entertainment Equity Network (SEEN) jointly announced the recipients of the inaugural SEEN/McCormack Graduate Fellowship. The SEEN/McCormack Graduate Fellowship is a multi-year partnership aiming to help remove barriers for Black and Brown professionals looking to advance their careers in sports and entertainment by providing free tuition and curriculum costs to the McCormack MS or MS/MBA program.

 

The application portal for the SEEN/McCormack Graduate Fellowship is now open for fall 2022 candidates. To apply, you must be an active member of the Sports & Entertainment Equity Network. The deadline to apply to the program is February 1, 2022. For more details and to start the application, please click here.

 

This year’s recipients, Diana Camarillo and Walter Tchougoue, will each receive free tuition and graduate assistantship funding for the two-year MBA/MS in sport management program. Camarillo and Tchougoue were selected from a field of SEEN members who applied for fall 2021 admission to the McCormack program.

 

“We were very impressed by the quality of candidates we received in the first year of our partnership with SEEN,” said Professor Will Norton, the McCormack Department’s graduate program director. “We were able to fulfill our goal of attracting more Black and Brown students, specifically from SEEN’s membership base, to further their education in sport management, and we look forward to having Diana and Walter as part of our rigorous dual degree program for the next two years.”

 

“Education is a fantastic tool for career development and advancement. Tristan Mitchell, co-founder of SEEN, and I are thankful to our partners at the McCormack Department of Sport Management and their donors for making it possible to remove the financial burdens that often restrict access to life-changing opportunities like this,” said Melcolm Ruffin ’13, co-founder of SEEN and head of athlete content strategy at CAA.

 

Camarillo graduated from Concordia University Chicago (River Forest, Ill.) with a bachelor of arts degree in political science and Spanish. Having spent most of her life in Chicago, Camarillo joins the program with eight years of work experience. Most recently, she served as the teen programs manager for the Chicago and Texas markets at Girls in the Game, an organization committed to helping every girl find their voice, discover their strength and lead with confidence. Prior to that, Camarillo was the event production assistant at Hometeam, where she designed, planned, and executed brand experiences and campaigns for notable brands such as Champs Sports and Nike.

"I am grateful and excited for the opportunity to be one of the inaugural SEEN fellows at UMass," said Camarillo. "I look forward to joining the community at the Isenberg School of Management this fall to learn from esteemed leaders and peers in the sport management and business industries. I hope to bring my experience in community impact and youth development while embodying the values of Sport & Entertainment Equity Network of building community, continued growth, and investment to serving others."

Tchougoue is a recent graduate of Towson University with a bachelor of science in international business. Throughout college, he gained a wide variety of experiences in sports business, including spending time with Wasserman, the National Basketball Association, and currently CSM Sport & Entertainment. These roles ranged from business development and sales to brands and properties.

 

“Sport & Entertainment Equity Network will serve as an opportunity for me to create pathways to success and sustained impact for more students of minority backgrounds,” said Tchougoue. “I'm looking forward to engaging with the Isenberg School of Management staff and the surrounding UMass Amherst community this fall. As soon as I got on the initial SEEN call I was sold!"

 

“We are extremely proud to award Diana and Walter as the inaugural recipients of the SEEN/McCormack Graduate Fellowship. They both have tremendous promise professionally and are great advocates for SEEN’s mission to create equity in the business of sports and entertainment,” said Tristan Mitchell, co-founder of SEEN and vice president, strategy at Excel Sports Management.

The parties are entering the second year of a three-year partnership between the McCormack Department of Sport Management and SEEN, which was announced in October 2020.

To apply for or learn more about the SEEN/McCormack Graduate Fellowship, click here.

 

About The McCormack Department of Sport Management

The McCormack Department of Sport Management at UMass Amherst is the second oldest degree program of its kind in the world and is currently ranked by SportsBusiness as the #1 graduate sport management program in the world. One of the few sport management programs housed in a business school (the Isenberg School of Management), the McCormack Department of Sport Management is also considered one the nation’s leading undergraduate program. UMass Amherst also houses the papers of Mark H. McCormack and the company that he founded, IMG. For more information about The McCormack Department of Sport Management, please visit https://www.isenberg.umass.edu/programs/depts/sport-mgmt

 

About Sports & Entertainment Equity Network

 

Sports & Entertainment Equity Network (SEEN) curates inclusive spaces where Black and Brown professionals in sports and entertainment can thrive. Through advancement, community building and giving back, SEEN aims to offer its members the opportunity to accelerate their careers, facilitate authentic relationships and provides them with impactful opportunities to reinvest their time and resources into the next generation of diverse sports & entertainment leaders. Founded in 2015, SEEN is a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit striving to close the diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) gap prevalent in the business of sports and entertainment. The SEEN community is made up of 1,500+ Black and Brown professionals, minorities, and allies of DEI working in the industry’s most elite companies. For more information on SEEN, please visit SEENtogether.org.