Finding her strike zone

From inside the ticket booth at McBride Stadium, Tiani Christian called a friendly welcome to guests, ready to answer questions while selling tickets.

Christian, a junior communications major at Indiana University East, was an intern with the Richmond Jazz this summer. As the director of sales and social media, Christian has gained new skills in business, social media and networking. The internship has helped her to develop a better idea of what she would like to do once she graduates with her Bachelor of Arts in Communications degree with a minor in entrepreneurship.

The Richmond Jazz is part of the Great Lakes Summer Collegiate League, a collegiate summer baseball league including 14 teams from Indiana, Ohio, Michigan and Ontario.

The Richmond Jazz played a 41 game schedule this season, 21 at home. Christian started in April preparing the baseball franchise for its fourth season by contacting Wayne County businesses and organizations to sponsor the team.

Beaman said Christian was involved with many of the community-based partnerships including attending local, special events with the baseball players and coaches in the community, or stayed in touch with business and corporation sponsors. “She also played a big role in our ticketing, and just being a consistent face with our fan base while selling tickets, taking ticket orders and maintaining the database.”

Christian was one of five interns working with the Richmond Jazz.

“It’s a really cool internship for a local team I’ve known for a long time, so the internship was a really cool find,” Christian said.

Though not an avid sports fan, Christian does enjoy the availability of athletic competitions. While she was at RHS, she managed the soccer team and attended athletic events. “I like the idea of sports,” Christian said. “I like the idea of managing the team and all the logistics behind it, I love all of the passion that everyone has. I think that’s unique to our industry and I think it’s really cool.”

At times, she worked long days and often had the freedom to work on her own and to make decisions. Christian managed customers’ questions, counted attendance, and she made sure umpires, scorekeepers and other paid positions received their compensation. She met with community and business leaders and gained a better understanding of how businesses work and how organizations interact and collaborate.

“I definitely learned a lot about how the community works,” Christian said.

Acquiring sponsorships from local businesses took up the majority of Christian’s internship responsibilities. Not only did she make the initial contact with businesses, she oversaw the contracts and made sure the advertising obligations for each one were fulfilled.

Beaman said Christian managed and oversaw the advertising design and placement as well as the franchise’s social media.

“I think she learned a lot about herself during this process. She’s a very unique individual,” Beaman said. “Coming into the internship, she wasn’t really a sports fan, so I think this has really opened up her eyes a little bit to the athletic and the baseball side of a business and what that looks like. I think she has grown with that general sports knowledge. I think she’s also grown a little bit within her own self with understanding her responsibilities from a team/employee perspective by working with groups, relying on people to make things happen, just from that team perspective and effort, I think she’s definitely grown a lot. I think she also was able to expand her communication and public relations skills.”

Beaman added Christian was a very quiet person at the start of the internship, so putting her in situations where she is challenged, had to deal with adversity, build time management and leadership skills helped her to learn and develop. She added Christian was very detail oriented and routine in her tasks, making her dependable.

“She was a pleasure for me to work with and to have on staff,” Beaman said. “We have a good relationship which obviously made her highs and lows manageable from her side. I think that she probably was able to narrow down what her focus and what her job will be moving forward.”

Originally, attending college in her hometown was not the plan.

“IU East was my ‘safety school.’ I wanted to go to a school out of state, the biggest one I could possibly find. I wanted all of the resources and all a huge campus could offer for a college experience,” Christian said. “Then I kind of fell in love with IU East the summer before. I thought I would stay and attend college in the community and then I would transfer.”

It took until the last part of her summer before the start of college to decide where she wanted to go, but Christian found her place at IU East. She signed up for the last available New Student Orientation and enrolled for her first college classes.

Three years later, she is glad she stayed.

“IU East has been the place for me,” Christian said. “I thank myself every day for deciding to stay. I really, really love it.”

The campus size has provided a close relationship with faculty, advisors and staff who are readily available to help, she said. “They really show that they care,” Christian said.

Pursuing a degree in communications is what appealed to Christian the most. “I love the content of the study but I’m not sure how I’m going to apply it just yet. I’m thinking of going into business.”

On campus, Christian takes a full course load each semester. She works as a writing consultant for the Writing Center at IU East. This fall, she is joining the Student Activity Advisory Team (SAAT), a student event planning team.

Christian is a 21st Century Scholar and a member of the Honors Program.