UA Management Students Make Fellow Student’s Independence Their Final Class Project

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – The students of Dr. Owen Sweatt’s management 420 class at The University of Alabama’s Culverhouse College of Commerce are taking the concepts they have learned in the classroom and are applying them in their final “leading change” project.

Sweatt, who teaches organizational change, approached his students this year with the option of following the syllabus or making a difference in their community while lending a helping hand to one of their fellow students.

Michael Parker, a senior majoring in general business administration, has used a wheelchair since 2004 following a diving accident. Parker is enrolled in one of Sweatt’s classes in which each student is charged with devising an individual plan for change and report on the process. Parker’s plan was to do more physical therapy, and his goal was to donate a therapeutic stationary bike to UA. He also needed a truck he could drive with just his hands and which he could get into and out of without help.

After hearing this, Sweatt proposed the idea to the class of raising the level of awareness of injuries, like Parker’s, by applying what they have learned in the class.

The students voted unanimously to take on the project and jumped at the chance to spread awareness of spinal cord injuries and to help Parker gain a new sense of independence by raising money to provide him with a truck with hand controls.

Parker injured his spinal cord July 4, 2004, breaking his fifth and sixth vertebrae when he dived into the waters off the shore of Destin while at a friend’s beach house on vacation.

“I was running and jumped into the water and hit the bottom,” Parker said. “I was knocked unconscious and would have drowned if it wasn’t for two of my buddies pulling me out of the water.”

“My friend, Kate Simms, who was a former lifeguard, ran up to me and moved everybody back and began to perform CPR,” Parker said. “Kate saved my life.”

After the accident, Parker chose a course of rehabilitation. “Picking rehabilitation to me wasn’t really a choice,” Parker said. “I grew up being able to walk, and I will do everything I can to be able to walk again.”

Parker said the he was extremely excited when he heard about Sweatt’s idea for the class’s final project.

“I was blown away by the whole thing,” Parker said. “The students are extremely excited to be working on the project and don’t even care about the grade anymore.”

Parker said the students at the University have been amazing and that he is really excited about the progress the team has made.

“We are going to work and keep on working,” Parker said. “The human spirit wants to help people in need, and I think that is what is going to lead to the projects success.”

Sweatt said this is the first time he has taken this type of approach with one of his class’s final projects.

“The students are stepping outside of the classroom and finding out the difference between reading and memorizing concepts and applying them in a real-life situation,” Sweatt said.

Sweatt said the students are learning how to use the steps of urgency, coalition, vision and strategy, communication, empowerment, setting short term goals, affecting the culture, working with others and spreading the message.

“It is important that the students are learning how to start the epidemic or the message,” Sweatt said. “They are also learning how to apply stickiness (figuring out what makes the subject attractive) to the project that they are working on.”

Sweatt said that the students are taking donations, selling wristbands, displaying flyers and writing messages in chalk around the campus to spread awareness. They are also using several facets of media to make the community aware of the project.

The students have developed a website, www.spinalcordawareness.com, for the project and are working to further the awareness of the project through other spectrums.

“The thing I enjoy the most about this project is seeing the quality of young people that we have here at the University,” Sweatt said. “It has been exciting to me to be able to share educational activities with the students, and I hope it reciprocates.”

Sweatt said the students are trying to leave the project entirely open-ended so other groups in the future will be able to continue the work that they have started.

Dr. J. Barry Mason, dean of The Culverhouse College of Commerce Business, said he likes to see students apply a blend of textbook learning and experience.

“The students see the need to help a classmate and make a tangible difference in the lives of others,” Mason said. “I am impressed by the creativity and innovation of these students, and I am glad to see that they are taking it all the way.”

Donations from the project will aid people with spinal-cord injuries and provide an exercise bike for handicapped people that will be donated to the University’s recreation center.

A donation box for “Bury Mike’s Wheelchair” will be at the Ferguson Center by the Supe Store Wednesday and Thursday afternoon. Students will also take donations on the Quad Monday through Thursday, leading up to an auction fundraiser at Alumni Hall, Friday, May 2, featuring collegiate memorabilia from many colleges.