Sports & Society Director Dr. Nicole Kraft earned the Arts and Sciences Faculty Champion Award on April 13 for her collaboration and dedication to the future success of students campus-wide. 

Each year the college’s Center for Career and Professional Success chooses one faculty member who understands the importance of preparing students for the world after graduation, Aaron Klein, the assistant director of industry connections for the career success team, said.

“[Kraft] really embodies what it means to be a career champion that, in all facets of her work with SSI, with her classes, with her partnership with us,” Klein said. “That lens is being brought into the pedagogy.” 

Kraft, an associate professor of practice in journalism in the School of Communication, teaches courses in journalism and sports media. She has led SSI since 2017 and is a member of the Ohio State Athletics Council. 

The career and professional success office held a recognition event where faculty, alumni and students were honored for their work over the 2022-23 school year, in relation to career success and development, Klein said. 

“Our main goal is to empower students to be ready for a lifetime of opportunities, whether that be in the professional sense, the academic sense,” Klein said. 

Ohio State’s College of Arts and Sciences has over 17,000—the largest on campus—which requires a lot of collaboration and working with faculty members to help ensure students’ success, Klein said. He said Kraft stands out because she “understands the work that we do, and she understands the importance of developing students as they prepare to launch their careers.” 

The award was also given to Kraft for her connections to individuals in the sports industry and her various work with SSI. 

“Helping us get connected with some great folks at the Columbus Crew, the Blue Jackets, obviously the plethora of contacts that she has within OSU athletics,” Klein said. “She’s really been dedicated to the cause of helping further the programming that we’re doing in our office all for the betterment of our students.”

Over the past year, SSI has hosted events like the "Career Readiness Fair: So you want to work in sports”; the Sports Data Analytics Conference; and Creative Con, being held May 5. 

All these events work hand in hand with the career and professional success office’s mission: helping students prepare for the world after college. 

“The idea that this relationship that we’ve built has spawned success, and that we’ve had some really terrific events and that we’re seeing people getting jobs is by far the most important part of this,” Kraft said. 

Klein said Kraft’s work with students spreads beyond Arts and Sciences to virtually every academic college on campus. The way she designs her course curriculum and teaches with intention is a testament to the knowledge she brings to career success, he said. 

Though Kraft works hard to prepare her students in the classroom, she dedicated this award to what the SSI team as a whole has been able to do for students’ post-graduation preparation and its reach, with the help of the career success team. This includes its assistant director, Dr. Ryan Ruddy, and administrator Mira Marshall, both of the Department of Economics 

“If you love sports and want to build a career around sports, we’re going to help you do that no matter what your major is,” Kraft said.  

Klein said with the help of SSI and Kraft students will be ready to enter the workforce and ultimately, represent Ohio State well. 

“When you have these types of opportunities where you’re engaging with industry, naturally, that is going to force them to start thinking about that next step in their career,” Klein said. “I think this is the beginning of having SSI and Arts and Sciences in this partnership moving forward.”