University of North Carolina Ashville Athletics
The 2019 Bulldog Challenge: A Truly Unique Collaboration
03.17.2019 | Athletics News
Special Behind-the-Scenes Look
A junior on the track and field team, Desire Brown obviously has a connection and affinity for UNC Asheville athletics.
Brown knows though that it takes the hard work and efforts of many to make things happen for UNC Asheville athletics.
That's why she is so thankful to be a part of Dr. Sonya DiPalma's inaugural "Social Media & Fundraising" Mass Communication course at UNC Asheville.
The class has more than reminded her at the end of the day what makes UNC Asheville special, particularly when it comes to being a part of a class that truly is a unique collaboration between athletics, academics, the alumni office, advancement and more.
To Brown it is simple - "We are all Bulldogs."
"I think everyone in this class is taking on these tasks as if they were a part of the athletic teams," Brown said. "They see how important it is to get everything through the Bulldog Challenge."
An important piece of UNC Asheville athletics
The 2019 Bulldog Challenge marks the sixth year of the annual fundraising event. Started in 2014 by Special Assistant to the Director of Athletics Betsy Blose, the Bulldog Challenge at its beginning was created to help increase the student-athlete alumni giving participation rate at UNC Asheville.
The campaign was originally a month-long event designed to align with March Madness. All of the funds raised went towards the UNC Asheville team enhancement accounts.
During the first year in 2014 there were a total of 67 donors with $5,187 raised altogether. The next year there were 244 donors with $21,036 raised.
Over the years the annual Bulldog Challenge continued to become a staple for the university with the 2017 Bulldog Challenge going 265 percent past its original goal of $40,000 with $107,015 raised.
Last year, UNC Asheville set an ambitious goal of $125,000. Once again, Bulldog fans and friends were more than up to the challenge with a record $131,963 raised. An impressive nearly $35,000 of the over $130,000 donated was raised by current UNC Asheville student-athletes.
The 2019 Bulldog Challenge will be a little different than the past in that it will run just two weeks from March 17-31. This year's goal is even more ambitious with efforts in place to hopefully raise $175,000.
In addition, the second annual Bulldog Challenge LIVE event is scheduled for Thursday, March 28. Over $17,000 of the over $130,000 raised last year came from the inaugural Bulldog Challenge Facebook LIVE event.
Embracing UNC Asheville's most valuable resources
UNC Asheville's "Believe. Achieve. Thrive."Â strategic plan is the road map for athletics over the course of the next five years. The strategic plan outlines key areas of focus and growth in developing lifetime leaders from the most valuable resource that UNC Asheville athletics has in its student-athletes.
That valuable resource is not just student-athletes though. UNC Asheville athletics knows that collaboration with students in general is important to the overall success of the athletics program.
That resource is more than being utilized with this year's Bulldog Challenge.
DiPalma's "Social Media & Fundraising" class is helping to make this year's Bulldog Challenge a success by developing and implementing a strategic communications plan.
"The wonderful part of this course for us in partnering with the Bulldog Challenge, the athletic department, alumni engagement and advancement is that we have created a real-time social media lab," DiPalma said. "This is something many universities do not have. This is a tremendous opportunity that we can afford our students. This experience of working with real-time social media analytics, creating live posts and dynamic and distinctive content is going to be a real plus for their portfolios on the other side of graduation."
Blose is truly thankful that DiPalma would take on this one-of-a-kind collaboration.Â
"I really have to give credit to (Alumni Engagement & Annual Giving Communications Coordinator) Emma Anderson and at the time Aaron Dahlstrom for bringing the idea about the Mass Communication class to us," Blose relayed. "I just think it was a natural progression of what we are trying to do with the Bulldog Challenge. This is great example of a true collaboration with advancement, athletics and the academic world. It's exciting. The students are great. Our student-athletes and coaches have welcomed them with open arms. We know it's a work in progress, but I am really excited about some of the opportunities that is going to present itself with this year's Bulldog Challenge."
UNC Asheville baseball head coach Scott Friedholm and his program are raising money through the Bulldog Challenge for dugouts for Greenwood Field. Friedholm knows the work through this class is vital to their success.
"We are always talking to our players about 'leaving it better for the next guy,'" Friedholm noted. "With the help of alumni, family and friends, we now have a tremendous opportunity to leave it better. These new dugouts are not only needed for a facility facelift, but also for a safety standpoint for our student-athletes. We are tremendously thankful for the efforts of not only the students in this class, but also Betsy Blose, (Assistant Athletics Director for Athletics Advancement) David Jandrew and (Assistant Director for Athletics Advancement & Alumni Engagement) Dan Freeman for their hard work behind the scenes. This year's Bulldog Challenge would not be possible without all of their tremendous support."
Something that sets us apart
Obviously every day UNC Asheville student-athletes work hard behind the scenes trying to find a way to set themselves apart from the competition.
All of the students in the special "Social Media & Fundraising" class also know that this opportunity through this class to leave a mark will definitely help them in their future endeavors.Â
"I think this opportunity that we have is something really unique and special, particularly to this campus," Ally Hibbitts said of being a part of the class. "You do not hear many coming out of college saying they had this type of experience and that they were able to help with a fundraising experience. Recently I interviewed for an internship and I told them that I was getting ready to take this class and they were super-excited because they had never really heard of anything like this. Having this background will hopefully set me apart."
Classmate Amanda Nail agrees.
"I think it's really cool to participate in something in school that is going to help after I graduate and actually at the same time contribute to fundraising for athletics. I want to do social media when I graduate, so contributing to the school on something like this is pretty special," Nail said.
As part of the class student groups were assigned to each athletic team at UNC Asheville. The students in the class were asked to create fundraising plea videos, generate social media content and work with the athletic teams on the best way to raise money for their program.
Highly decorated for her efforts in the pool for UNC Asheville, Morgan Rulevich and Brown are working together as part of the class to help raise funds for swimming & diving.
Rulevich has been working extremely hard to help raise awareness for UNC Asheville swimming & diving by even going as far as using a Go Pro to gather underwater footage.
"I am being really competitive with this, but keeping it really fun too," Rulevich said. "We're going to be releasing a video each day of individuals saying who they are and (saying for example), 'Hi, I'm Morgan Rulevich, I'm a senior and this is how you do a back flip,' just to keep it really easy to understand so it's fun to watch."
All of this is why the students took the class in the first place. They knew it was going to be truly rewarding.
"I wanted to get a real-life experience and be able to see the results from it through our work," Chris Bonilla said.
It may even make new fans. Just ask Virginia Taylor who along with Hibbitts is working with women's basketball.
"I have admittedly never had a lot of opportunities to interact with the sports teams on campus," Taylor said. "It was kind of cool to actually get to know some of them. I went to my first sporting event because of this. It was really special to see all of them and meet them as individual people."
Taylor knows no matter what this whole experience will be one that she treasures.
"I do a lot of independent marketing, so learning about doing social media campaigns is something that I really wanted to do because I think it's really important for my career," Taylor said. "Already within a month of taking this class a lot of the clients that I do marketing for have seen that I have been able to use some of the skills and I can already see that it's going to be real beneficial for me."
Learn more
You can learn more about the 2019 Bulldog Challenge by visiting unca.edu/bulldogchallenge. To see a special behind-the-scenes look at the unique collaboration, please visit HERE.Â
A junior on the track and field team, Desire Brown obviously has a connection and affinity for UNC Asheville athletics.
Brown knows though that it takes the hard work and efforts of many to make things happen for UNC Asheville athletics.
That's why she is so thankful to be a part of Dr. Sonya DiPalma's inaugural "Social Media & Fundraising" Mass Communication course at UNC Asheville.
The class has more than reminded her at the end of the day what makes UNC Asheville special, particularly when it comes to being a part of a class that truly is a unique collaboration between athletics, academics, the alumni office, advancement and more.
To Brown it is simple - "We are all Bulldogs."
"I think everyone in this class is taking on these tasks as if they were a part of the athletic teams," Brown said. "They see how important it is to get everything through the Bulldog Challenge."
An important piece of UNC Asheville athletics
The 2019 Bulldog Challenge marks the sixth year of the annual fundraising event. Started in 2014 by Special Assistant to the Director of Athletics Betsy Blose, the Bulldog Challenge at its beginning was created to help increase the student-athlete alumni giving participation rate at UNC Asheville.
The campaign was originally a month-long event designed to align with March Madness. All of the funds raised went towards the UNC Asheville team enhancement accounts.
During the first year in 2014 there were a total of 67 donors with $5,187 raised altogether. The next year there were 244 donors with $21,036 raised.
Over the years the annual Bulldog Challenge continued to become a staple for the university with the 2017 Bulldog Challenge going 265 percent past its original goal of $40,000 with $107,015 raised.
Last year, UNC Asheville set an ambitious goal of $125,000. Once again, Bulldog fans and friends were more than up to the challenge with a record $131,963 raised. An impressive nearly $35,000 of the over $130,000 donated was raised by current UNC Asheville student-athletes.
The 2019 Bulldog Challenge will be a little different than the past in that it will run just two weeks from March 17-31. This year's goal is even more ambitious with efforts in place to hopefully raise $175,000.
In addition, the second annual Bulldog Challenge LIVE event is scheduled for Thursday, March 28. Over $17,000 of the over $130,000 raised last year came from the inaugural Bulldog Challenge Facebook LIVE event.
Embracing UNC Asheville's most valuable resources
UNC Asheville's "Believe. Achieve. Thrive."Â strategic plan is the road map for athletics over the course of the next five years. The strategic plan outlines key areas of focus and growth in developing lifetime leaders from the most valuable resource that UNC Asheville athletics has in its student-athletes.
That valuable resource is not just student-athletes though. UNC Asheville athletics knows that collaboration with students in general is important to the overall success of the athletics program.
That resource is more than being utilized with this year's Bulldog Challenge.
DiPalma's "Social Media & Fundraising" class is helping to make this year's Bulldog Challenge a success by developing and implementing a strategic communications plan.
"The wonderful part of this course for us in partnering with the Bulldog Challenge, the athletic department, alumni engagement and advancement is that we have created a real-time social media lab," DiPalma said. "This is something many universities do not have. This is a tremendous opportunity that we can afford our students. This experience of working with real-time social media analytics, creating live posts and dynamic and distinctive content is going to be a real plus for their portfolios on the other side of graduation."
Blose is truly thankful that DiPalma would take on this one-of-a-kind collaboration.Â
"I really have to give credit to (Alumni Engagement & Annual Giving Communications Coordinator) Emma Anderson and at the time Aaron Dahlstrom for bringing the idea about the Mass Communication class to us," Blose relayed. "I just think it was a natural progression of what we are trying to do with the Bulldog Challenge. This is great example of a true collaboration with advancement, athletics and the academic world. It's exciting. The students are great. Our student-athletes and coaches have welcomed them with open arms. We know it's a work in progress, but I am really excited about some of the opportunities that is going to present itself with this year's Bulldog Challenge."
UNC Asheville baseball head coach Scott Friedholm and his program are raising money through the Bulldog Challenge for dugouts for Greenwood Field. Friedholm knows the work through this class is vital to their success.
"We are always talking to our players about 'leaving it better for the next guy,'" Friedholm noted. "With the help of alumni, family and friends, we now have a tremendous opportunity to leave it better. These new dugouts are not only needed for a facility facelift, but also for a safety standpoint for our student-athletes. We are tremendously thankful for the efforts of not only the students in this class, but also Betsy Blose, (Assistant Athletics Director for Athletics Advancement) David Jandrew and (Assistant Director for Athletics Advancement & Alumni Engagement) Dan Freeman for their hard work behind the scenes. This year's Bulldog Challenge would not be possible without all of their tremendous support."
Something that sets us apart
Obviously every day UNC Asheville student-athletes work hard behind the scenes trying to find a way to set themselves apart from the competition.
All of the students in the special "Social Media & Fundraising" class also know that this opportunity through this class to leave a mark will definitely help them in their future endeavors.Â
"I think this opportunity that we have is something really unique and special, particularly to this campus," Ally Hibbitts said of being a part of the class. "You do not hear many coming out of college saying they had this type of experience and that they were able to help with a fundraising experience. Recently I interviewed for an internship and I told them that I was getting ready to take this class and they were super-excited because they had never really heard of anything like this. Having this background will hopefully set me apart."
Classmate Amanda Nail agrees.
"I think it's really cool to participate in something in school that is going to help after I graduate and actually at the same time contribute to fundraising for athletics. I want to do social media when I graduate, so contributing to the school on something like this is pretty special," Nail said.
As part of the class student groups were assigned to each athletic team at UNC Asheville. The students in the class were asked to create fundraising plea videos, generate social media content and work with the athletic teams on the best way to raise money for their program.
Highly decorated for her efforts in the pool for UNC Asheville, Morgan Rulevich and Brown are working together as part of the class to help raise funds for swimming & diving.
Rulevich has been working extremely hard to help raise awareness for UNC Asheville swimming & diving by even going as far as using a Go Pro to gather underwater footage.
"I am being really competitive with this, but keeping it really fun too," Rulevich said. "We're going to be releasing a video each day of individuals saying who they are and (saying for example), 'Hi, I'm Morgan Rulevich, I'm a senior and this is how you do a back flip,' just to keep it really easy to understand so it's fun to watch."
All of this is why the students took the class in the first place. They knew it was going to be truly rewarding.
"I wanted to get a real-life experience and be able to see the results from it through our work," Chris Bonilla said.
It may even make new fans. Just ask Virginia Taylor who along with Hibbitts is working with women's basketball.
"I have admittedly never had a lot of opportunities to interact with the sports teams on campus," Taylor said. "It was kind of cool to actually get to know some of them. I went to my first sporting event because of this. It was really special to see all of them and meet them as individual people."
Taylor knows no matter what this whole experience will be one that she treasures.
"I do a lot of independent marketing, so learning about doing social media campaigns is something that I really wanted to do because I think it's really important for my career," Taylor said. "Already within a month of taking this class a lot of the clients that I do marketing for have seen that I have been able to use some of the skills and I can already see that it's going to be real beneficial for me."
Learn more
You can learn more about the 2019 Bulldog Challenge by visiting unca.edu/bulldogchallenge. To see a special behind-the-scenes look at the unique collaboration, please visit HERE.Â
Players Mentioned
Sprints
/ Track and Field
Free/Breast
/ Women's Swimming & DivingThursday, June 18
Wednesday, March 18
Wednesday, March 11
Friday, February 06