Gurkin, a 2016 MBA candidate at
Culverhouse, said, “It’s just like the
real world, there were deadlines and
deliverables to meet, which will be good
experience for me going forward.”
Goodman, who is at Emerson College
in Boston, Massachusetts, for advanced
degree work, said, “I really liked that I
was working to help something greater
than my GPA. Making the marketing
materials was good practice.”
The final grade: “You got an A, an A,
an A,” said Beene, gazing around the
presentation table. “We were able to
come up with new ideas for this past
summer’s films, and within 20 minutes
of putting the schedule out, we had 300
Facebook shares and 1,000 not long after
that. We don’t radically change around
here, but we may go with their themed
film nights in the future. The place
they really aced it was sponsorships
and finding sponsors to match up with
movies.” Beene and his staff also plan
to use the contact lists. “Recruiting
schools could basically pay our bills if
we had one school every week. We really
want to mine that.”
What’s next? “The Alabama is a
constant work in progress, and I could
see a continuing effort where next year’s
class would look at this year’s and see
what we do next,” Beene said. “These
students are our target audience, and
we’d do this again in a heartbeat.”
Rickwood Field
Executive Director: David Brewer;
Graduate Project Manager: Claudia
Calhoun; Team: Iris Sanders Jarvis,
Shanna Herrington, Max Kaska, Austin
Braasch, Bradley Kidd and Evan Pierce
The property: Built in 1910, with input
from famed Connie Mack, for use
by the Birmingham Barons and the
Birmingham Black Barons (of the Negro
National League). Considered the oldest
surviving baseball park in the country.
Serving city schools and traveling teams
in addition to its role as a “working
museum” of baseball history.
Challenges for the Culverhouse team:
“Claudia Calhoun and I formed a
Culverhouse marketing team visits Rickwood Field for their project.