Keep the F.A.I.T.H. is a program to teach life skills to young athletes through a curriculum that can be offered by schools. Founded by Cecile Shell, a student in the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law, the venture won $1,000. “We’ll focus not just on academics, but we’ll implement financial literacy and identity development,” Shell said. “We want you to know that you have more to offer society.”

When Wyomia Tyus and John Carlos stood in the Olympic Stadium in Mexico City for the first time in 1968, they helped launch a movement of athletes raising their voices — and in the case of John Carlos, raising his fist. Their goal was to bring light to racial inequality in the United States. A half-century later, their message still rings loud in stadiums around the world.

For all the heightened chatter this year about whether college student-athletes should be paid, Dr. Kenneth Shropshire suggests that making their education a priority is more important than a microscopic focus on financial compensation.

NFL Player Engagement collaborated with Arizona State University (ASU) in conjunction with its new Global Sport Institute to develop this year’s curriculum. The program offers participants an opportunity to gain an in-depth understanding of the financial world, and establish habits that will help maintain long-term financial stability.

In his recent book The Miseducation of the Student Athlete: How to Fix College Sports, Shropshire and his co-author Collin D. Williams argue that “student” has to come first in student-athlete: the focus should be on prioritizing a meaningful education.

Incredibly aware of how to “use the unifying power of sport to make positive impact in the world,” after three decades as a Wharton School of Business and Department of Africana Studies professor, Kenneth Shropshire is taking his talent to Arizona State University.

Kenneth Shropshire, a professor of sports, business and law, and director of the Wharton Sports Business Initiative at the University of Pennsylvania, is leaving to join Arizona State University to lead a new international sports center.