Vanderbilt’s College of Arts and Science recently approved the new sports and society minor, which integrates the study of culture and athletics. The minor will require 15 credit hours and span multiple disciplines such as economics, psychology, communications and music.
The minor will also include opportunities for sports-related internships, immersion projects and independent studies to count as credit hours for the degree. After being launched in the fall semester of the 2024-2025 academic year, the sports and society minor, which is housed within the Culture, Advocacy and Leadership program, is officially available to students now.
The degree aims to develop a nuanced understanding of how athletics operate within various aspects of society, such as politics, culture, economics and community, according to communication studies professor and director of the sports and society minor John Sloop.
“Hopefully, there’s gonna be a lot of different dimensions to the minor — the ways in which we think about the economics of sports, the political dimensions of sports and those cultural dimensions, some of which are not political in a traditional sense,” Sloop said. “So how do we find community? How do people find a sense of value being a sports fan? That’s important to me as well.”
Sloop said he sees sports as an integral part of society and culture. Emotion, tradition, money, community and politics are all intertwined within the fabric of athletics, and Sloop hopes that the program allows students to explore this impact more deeply.
Saylor Mullarkey, a first-year student, also recognizes the impact athletics has and the importance of offering such a degree.
“Sports play a huge role in contemporary society, so I’m excited Vanderbilt is giving students the opportunity to dive so deeply into unique subjects such as this,” Mullarkey said. “I think the program will really highlight the different aspects of how sports have an impact.”
A multi-disciplinary course set will be offered to those who plan on taking up the minor with classes already listed on its website.
Sloop said he was inspired to initiate the program after seeing the popularity of sports-related classes at Vanderbilt through a class he co-taught that focused on the cultural impact of soccer.
“I started looking around at other courses at our college. There’s a course in history that one professor teaches, and it’s really about the history of soccer in the U.S. through the lens of local communities,” Sloop said. “It’s really fascinating. I just looked, and I thought, ‘There’s all these people teaching these things, and they’re interesting and dynamic.’”
Sloop also said he is impressed with the outcomes of students who have taken such courses.
“We took six students with us on a trip to London and to Manchester and Liverpool to watch soccer, go to museums and tour stadiums,” Sloop said. “And while we were there, I was thinking about how what the students did was really interesting. They did great projects about sound, about crowds, how Hall of Fames work and how museums tell a story about culture.”
According to Sloop, the student interest and the already offered sport-related courses were powerful motivators for the initiation of this degree, which will help centralize these courses under a specific credential for students.
First-year Miles Pearlman described how sports are on the rise, and addressing this with a related field of study seems important.
“I mean, just looking at Vanderbilt’s win against Bama [Oct. 5] shows how much influence even collegiate sports can have on a whole nation,” Pearlman said. “I know similar schools such as Rice that have multiple majors relating to different areas of study within sports and have seen success with that.”
Professor Sloop also expressed excitement about the degree’s intellectual impact on students and the opportunities it will provide for those who want to pursue careers in sports and media.
“I’m just excited for the students who want to write about sports or think about sports. Doing something in sports to have that credential might open some doors in that area, so I’m excited about that,” Sloop said.
First-year Emmett Boyd described how he sees the program as a gateway into the sports industry.
“I’ve talked to a number of people my age who have an interest in entering the sports industry,” Boyd said. “Seems like it would be an opportune minor for Vanderbilt to test.”
Professor Sloop encourages those who are interested or who have questions to reach out to him regarding the program.
