Silver Anniversary Honoree: Bola Bamiduro '01BC
5/5/2009 9:45:00 AM | General
For most student-athletes, juggling the rigorous curriculum with the demands of a varsity sport can be challenging. For Bola Bamiduro, it wasn't enough.
As an undergraduate at Barnard, Bamiduro learned many of the same lessons that any student-athlete will tell you: time management, balancing a variety of interests, determination, goal setting and leadership. But Bamiduro took these lessons to the extreme, balancing academics, athletics, a full-time internship, on top of holding a national leadership role.
The women's lacrosse team first competed in 1997, the year before Bamiduro arrived in Morningside Heights. As a four-year member of the team, she was able to see the program through the pivotal transitional years of first becoming a varsity program. Over the course of her career, she saw the team improve and the quality of talent increase. She was elected team captain her senior year as well as being named the team's most valuable player.
Bamiduro, who also played field hockey for one year, was actively involved in many other things off the field. One of those extra roles was serving as the Vice Chair, then Chair of the Division I Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) to the NCAA. In doing so, she became the first Ivy League student-athlete to hold this position.
Bamiduro served on Columbia's SAAC and was the school's representative for the Ivy League SAAC meetings. The league at that time was looking for a new representative to represent the conference on a national level. Bamiduro was the answer, but she wasn't finished there. She was then elected by her peers on the national committee to serve as vice-chair before taking over as the chair for all of Division I.
“My role was to represent all Division I student-athletes,” explains Bamiduro. “There was a national conference that took place every year. At this conference, we were able to bring the student-athletes' voice to the management that made the rules. We would look over legislation that would affect student-athletes, talk it over, and go before the management committee in hopes of persuading them to vote our way.”
Sounds like a lot for your normal student-athlete, but this was just a part of Bamiduro's extra curricula. In the fall of her junior year, she had a full-time internship with the US Mission to the United Nations. The political science major, unsure of whether or not she wanted to go into politics, spent two and a half months working with a US representative, helping with preparations for the United Nations' huge annual conference. This exposed her to a number of summits and enabled her to listen in on hot topics at that time. That was a busy fall semester for Bamiduro, who had practice in the mornings, worked full-time during the day, and took classes at night.
In addition to politics, there was another passion Bamiduro considered pursuing after graduation, and that was sports. During her senior year, she interned with the National Basketball Association (NBA) a couple of days a week. She worked at the NBA Store, prepared press kits and helped with promotional events and the press aspect of the NBA All-Star Game.
From this internship, Bamiduro realized she was interested in potentially moving into the sports field, but had limited connections in the industry, as networking at that time in the sports world away from Columbia was very limited. Later in her career, she would turn to education as a way of gaining exposure to the right people.
With the attacks that happened on September 11, shortly after Bamiduro graduated from Barnard, the economy was struggling and jobs were scarce. Bamiduro took a job in an advertising agency but decided within weeks it wasn't for her. By chance, there was an opening in the Barnard admissions office, and Bamiduro got the job. “I loved the school and the experience I had at Barnard so for me it was easy to recruit kids to come there.”
After three years working for her alma mater, she was ready for something new. Remembering that desire to investigate the sports industry, Bamiduro began looking around for Masters programs and found a great fit at New York University. She worked in the NYU admissions office while taking classes in its sports management program. She really enjoyed being in a new environment and began to focus on diversity. After earning her degree in Sports Management, Bamiduro stayed on one more year at NYU before once again feeling the itch to try something completely different.
With her admissions background, she wanted to continue recruiting talented individuals. She fell upon an opportunity at Morgan Stanley where she would be involved in diversity recruiting efforts for college students and internships. She enjoyed educating talented individuals on the industry and the opportunities available to them. Today, she is the Head of Diversity Recruiting at Morgan Stanley, but who knows when the bug to try something new will strike her again.
As an undergraduate at Barnard, Bamiduro learned many of the same lessons that any student-athlete will tell you: time management, balancing a variety of interests, determination, goal setting and leadership. But Bamiduro took these lessons to the extreme, balancing academics, athletics, a full-time internship, on top of holding a national leadership role.
The women's lacrosse team first competed in 1997, the year before Bamiduro arrived in Morningside Heights. As a four-year member of the team, she was able to see the program through the pivotal transitional years of first becoming a varsity program. Over the course of her career, she saw the team improve and the quality of talent increase. She was elected team captain her senior year as well as being named the team's most valuable player.
Bamiduro, who also played field hockey for one year, was actively involved in many other things off the field. One of those extra roles was serving as the Vice Chair, then Chair of the Division I Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) to the NCAA. In doing so, she became the first Ivy League student-athlete to hold this position.
Bamiduro served on Columbia's SAAC and was the school's representative for the Ivy League SAAC meetings. The league at that time was looking for a new representative to represent the conference on a national level. Bamiduro was the answer, but she wasn't finished there. She was then elected by her peers on the national committee to serve as vice-chair before taking over as the chair for all of Division I.
“My role was to represent all Division I student-athletes,” explains Bamiduro. “There was a national conference that took place every year. At this conference, we were able to bring the student-athletes' voice to the management that made the rules. We would look over legislation that would affect student-athletes, talk it over, and go before the management committee in hopes of persuading them to vote our way.”
Sounds like a lot for your normal student-athlete, but this was just a part of Bamiduro's extra curricula. In the fall of her junior year, she had a full-time internship with the US Mission to the United Nations. The political science major, unsure of whether or not she wanted to go into politics, spent two and a half months working with a US representative, helping with preparations for the United Nations' huge annual conference. This exposed her to a number of summits and enabled her to listen in on hot topics at that time. That was a busy fall semester for Bamiduro, who had practice in the mornings, worked full-time during the day, and took classes at night.
In addition to politics, there was another passion Bamiduro considered pursuing after graduation, and that was sports. During her senior year, she interned with the National Basketball Association (NBA) a couple of days a week. She worked at the NBA Store, prepared press kits and helped with promotional events and the press aspect of the NBA All-Star Game.
From this internship, Bamiduro realized she was interested in potentially moving into the sports field, but had limited connections in the industry, as networking at that time in the sports world away from Columbia was very limited. Later in her career, she would turn to education as a way of gaining exposure to the right people.
With the attacks that happened on September 11, shortly after Bamiduro graduated from Barnard, the economy was struggling and jobs were scarce. Bamiduro took a job in an advertising agency but decided within weeks it wasn't for her. By chance, there was an opening in the Barnard admissions office, and Bamiduro got the job. “I loved the school and the experience I had at Barnard so for me it was easy to recruit kids to come there.”
After three years working for her alma mater, she was ready for something new. Remembering that desire to investigate the sports industry, Bamiduro began looking around for Masters programs and found a great fit at New York University. She worked in the NYU admissions office while taking classes in its sports management program. She really enjoyed being in a new environment and began to focus on diversity. After earning her degree in Sports Management, Bamiduro stayed on one more year at NYU before once again feeling the itch to try something completely different.
With her admissions background, she wanted to continue recruiting talented individuals. She fell upon an opportunity at Morgan Stanley where she would be involved in diversity recruiting efforts for college students and internships. She enjoyed educating talented individuals on the industry and the opportunities available to them. Today, she is the Head of Diversity Recruiting at Morgan Stanley, but who knows when the bug to try something new will strike her again.
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