Back in early March it seemed drastic and maybe draconian when Harvard University cancelled hosting the Ivy League basketball tournament. The domino effect from that decision has been far reaching, had unexpected consequences and continued to wreak havoc on colleges and universities on and off the playing fields
This Diverse Talk Live! will take a look at how COVID-19 may forever change the landscape of college athletics moving forward.
Associate Dean for Graduate Affairs and NCAA Faculty Representative, University of Michigan
Dr. Ketra L. Armstrong (a Tupelo, MS native) is currently the Associate Dean for Graduate Affairs; Director of Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion; and Professor of Sport Management in the School of Kinesiology at the University of Michigan (UM). She is also an Affiliate Faculty in the UM Departments of Afroamerican and African Studies, Women’s Studies, and the Institute for Research on Women and Gender. She is a University Diversity & Social Transformation Professor, and also serves as UM’s NCAA Faculty Athletics Representative. Prior to her employment at UM, Dr. Armstrong served as Professor and Director of the Graduate Program in Sport Management at California State University, Long Beach (CSULB), and as an Assistant and Associate Professor of Sport Management at The Ohio State University (OSU).
Dr. Armstrong’s scholarship converges on the topics of race, gender, and the social psychology of sport/leisure consumption and the management thereof. Her research has been featured in numerous journals (Journal of Sport Management, Sport Marketing Quarterly, Journal of Sport and Social Issues, Journal of Sport Behavior, Innovative Marketing, Journal of Black Psychology, Journal of Black Studies, Western Journal of Black Studies, and others). She received the 2001, Outstanding Probationary Faculty Research Award from OSU; she received the 2002 Young Professional Award from the American Association of Active Lifestyle and Fitness; she co-authored an article that received the 2004 Outstanding Research Award by the Sport Marketing Association; she conducted national research for Essence Magazine on Black Women’s Fitness; in 2008 she was inducted as a Research Fellow by the North American Society for Sport Management, and in 2011 the article she was the lead author of, ‘Market Analyses of Race and Sport Consumption,’ received the distinction of being among the top 20 articles published in the past 20 years by Sport Marketing Quarterly. She was inducted as a 2015 Fellow in the National Academy of Kinesiology. She offered a Coursera (online) Teach-Out on Free Speech in Sport and she is presently authoring a book for Routledge entitled, Theorizing Race and Sport (Social Psychological Perspectives). She has delivered numerous presentations and workshops on diversity, equity, and inclusion, and she is a member of the Diversity Scholars Network at the National Center for Institutional Diversity (NCID).
In addition to Dr. Armstrong’s scholarly pursuits, she has amassed a wealth of practical experience in sport. She is a former NCAA Division I scholarship student athlete (basketball player), coach (women’s basketball), and athletic administrator. Over the years, she has performed integral roles in the advising/consulting, research, management, marketing, and/or media relations for numerous youth, community, collegiate, professional, and international sport events. Her professional service includes being a member of the NCAA Gender Equity Task Force, the former Vice-President of the NCAA Scholarly Colloquium and Social Justice Symposium, the former President of the National Association for Girls and Women in Sport, former Internal Advisory Board Member for the UM SHARP Research Center (for Girls and Women), former Board Member of the National Women’s Hall of Fame, and a former Member of the prestigious Wade Trophy Selection Committee (NCAA women’s basketball). She presently serves on the Governor of Michigan’s Task Force on Women in Sport.
