The next phase of a new international partnership between Ball State University and Cardiff Metropolitan University is Sept. 5-10 as Sports Link welcomes program directors Joe Towns and Lukas Burks to Muncie.

This summer, Ball State and Cardiff Met agreed to a five-year understanding which recognizes the mutual benefits of an educational partnership, which in part will lead to collaboration, opportunities and faculty/student engagement.

During the visit, Towns and Burks will observe and engage with Sports Link students in action — from the classroom and studios to live broadcasts and producing in the field.

The two will also meet with Ball State head coaches and student-athletes, plus experience NCAA game action with BSU field hockey and football both playing at home.

Since 2016, both Sports Link and Cardiff Met program directors have continued to share teaching methods and curriculum growth. 

In Fall 2018, the first virtual exchange between students of each University began and in Spring 2019, Chris Taylor virtually conducted a sports storytelling workshops with students at Cardiff Met.

“We have partners in America at Ball State University in Indiana,” Towns said. “They run one of the top sports broadcasting programmes and have been consistently giving us help and advice regarding the implementation of our sports programme. What we are doing is fairly unique in Britain, and the fairly obvious place to look was the American colleges.

“I was looking around for courses similar to what we were trying to create, a live sports broadcast production degree, and there are not many in Britain, those are more journalism based, “Towns said. “That is how our relationship started with Ball State. Now we do virtual lectures back and forth, their students watch our live streams, and our students watch theirs and they give feedback to each other and collaborate globally.”

In May 2019, Taylor and assistant director Brad Dailey, traveled to Wales and worked with students at Cardiff Met on story development and storytelling skills, observed students in the field, met with sports media and team personnel within Wales, toured sports stadiums and logged cultural experiences for students.

The Sports Link site visit to Cardiff strengthened the partnership — and the mutual desire of both institutions and programs — to build an embedded international field experience for our students. The first of which is slated for March 2020 as select Sports Link students will travel to Wales for a 10-12 day experience.

The opportunity provides identifiable evidence toward Ball State’s Destination 2040 including undergraduate excellence and innovation with emphasis on international opportunities and globalization; and scholarship — of discovery, integration, application, and teaching.

Among the learning outcomes/objectives for creating partnership in the UK are:

• Enhancing the Ball State brand and meeting strategic outcomes of internationalization and diverse cultural experiences for students
• Enhancing the Cardiff Met brand and program through our staff and student expertise in digital sports production and storytelling
• Observing, learning and respecting cultural differences in the classroom setting
• Experiencing the production techniques and values of sports not currently in the United States (rugby, international soccer, cricket) for a different culture with different values
• Appreciate cultural differences, while understanding we are more alike than different in student collaboration and storytelling of Cardiff Met student-athletes 
• Welsh and British history and cultural immersion with experience of local sport, castles and cathedrals in Cardiff
• Broadcast formats, delivery and requirements in the UK
• Compare/contrast digital content creation and storytelling styles
• Constant increase in value of authentically global sport entities, including athletes
• Increased economic growth and impact in the world of sport, including the increasing impact of sport on other industries