How Partnerships Are Creating New Opportunities for Team USA Athletes

Wes Smith (00:00.13)
Katie, welcome to the show.

Kati Pratt (00:12.947)
That’s great.

Kati Pratt (00:18.781)
Thank you for having me. I’m excited to be here.

Wes Smith (00:21.122)
Hey, it’s it’s great to have you on to talk about our theme this month, which is the power of partnerships. And I know Purdue Global has a really powerful partnership with Guild and Team USA Learning Network. And I would love for you to tell us a little bit about that partnership.

Kati Pratt (00:33.617)
Yes.

Kati Pratt (00:38.021)
Absolutely. So Purdue Global is honored to be the preferred online degree granting partner of the Guild and Team USA Learning Network. And yes, that does sound like a mouthful. But what that means is that we are able to offer an education benefit to Team USA athletes, those that are eligible, like for them to go back and earn their degree. I mean, on average, I think student athletes like they spend about 10 years of their adult lives.

dedicated to going to learning their sport, to practices, to competing. So they don’t always have the time to dedicate towards like earning their education. So this is a great way for us to partner alongside Team USA and Guild to give them that opportunity to get that degree so that they can what life looks like after sport.

Wes Smith (01:28.14)
Right. I I’d imagine that that some of the Olympic sports have like a a college ability to compete, but a lot of them don’t, right?

Kati Pratt (01:35.185)
Yeah.

No, there’s a lot that don’t. There’s a lot that like depending on your sport, especially I think it’s more so in the winter, the winter sports is like you may need to go somewhere from home, like you may need to go to Europe. You may depending on where to train, right? And so you may not be able to have that traditional college experience. So this partnership allows us to offer that opportunity to these athletes to that now take a chance and go back to school.

Wes Smith (02:03.894)
At the president’s forum, you know, we’re dedicated to serving non-traditional adult learners. We we talk about that all the time. It seems like this particular class of student it you know checks that mark in in several ways. You you’ve got adult learners to the extreme. Tell us a little bit about the population that you’re serving here.

Kati Pratt (02:28.688)
Yeah, so there’s about the average age they’re twenty-eight or older. like when they, you know, typically retire from competition. So like that’s kind what we’re seeing like for our student population that’s like been taking advantage of the benefit as well. and not quite half. I think it’s in the forty, forty to forty-three percent range. they also do work while they’re training as well, which is very similar to our

regular student, you know, adult learner population that, you know, they’re they’re working, they’re trying to take classes, you know, like they’re trying to take care of a family. So, you know, this for their job has been training, you know, for all these years. And so like the the now the opportunity to kind of get an education. So like that’s what we’re seeing with our with our student athletes that have taken advantage of this benefit.

Wes Smith (03:21.122)
Got it. Okay. Well, I mean, you’re you’re clearly dealing with very motivated people. And and yeah, strong work that work ethic, that’s for sure. tell us a little bit about your athletes and how you’ve served them. we’d love to hear about how this partnership has, you know, improved life for the actual students.

Kati Pratt (03:26.086)
Yes. what Catholic. Yeah.

Kati Pratt (03:31.057)
Yes.

Kati Pratt (03:41.98)
Absolutely. So we’ve had, I think, around 13 student athletes graduate to date. So we launched the pro we launched the partnership in April of 2024. So it was right before the Paris 2024 Summer Games. so that’s kind of when we launched. And so we’ve, you know, we’ve got, you know, any given time, you know, like there’s a different number of athletes that are currently participating because we have retired and also active as well. And so like if they’re in the middle of competition, they may take

Wes Smith (03:56.28)
Okay.

Kati Pratt (04:11.855)
short break, but we also work with them like along that so that we understand their their life and like their requirements and we work with them and give them all of the support that they need. being an Olympic athlete and what that means like to go back to school. They have access to all of the same like support and resources that all of our students do. Like we we take student success very seriously at Purdue Global. It’s the it’s the it’s our cornerstone. It’s everything that we do is centered around our students.

Wes Smith (04:39.341)
Right.

Kati Pratt (04:42.212)
And you know, we want to ensure that they’re taken care of and they understand what’s available to them.

Wes Smith (04:49.154)
So d do you are are you do you have the ability to name drop? Like can you tell us about any particular athlete? Okay, all right.

Kati Pratt (04:56.179)
I’ll name drop one. Yes. So a recent one I’ll name drop because she’s so near and dear to our hearts recently. So Ashley Farquarson just recently competed in the winter games this past winter in Milan, Cortina. She won the bronze in the Louge. I think she’s only the second woman, American to win a medal in the Luge. And

Wes Smith (05:14.509)
Love it.

Wes Smith (05:20.419)
Wow.

Kati Pratt (05:23.845)
Our team had what they called Luge lunches where they would take breaks and like watch the competition so they could check Ashley out. And our other kind of like fun fact with her is, you know, Purdue Global, you know, we’re we we are Purdue University’s online university like for working adults. And so like we do have Olympic athletes that have participated, you know, like from the Purdue system, but Ashley is our first in our system in the winter games to win a medal. So like across the

Wes Smith (05:53.07)
Awesome.

Kati Pratt (05:53.664)
And we are so proud of her. She’s studying business at the same time. So she didn’t take a pause so she’s still taking taking classes. She came back on campus and did a fireside chat with our CEO, Eva Nodine at our women’s conference this past June. And she was we took her out for dinner and like then she like had to go sign into seminar like right after. So like she really does it all. So she’s been a fantastic.

Wes Smith (06:20.216)
Yeah.

Kati Pratt (06:22.033)
steward for the partnership in the program. She’s actually her roommate, who’s also a Louge athlete, is also taking advantage of the benefit and they’ve also she’s also helped us recruit other Luge athletes as well. She’s kind of become a an official probably make her an official ambassador of the program, but she’s fantastic.

Wes Smith (06:32.437)
nice.

Wes Smith (06:39.65)
Love it.

Wes Smith (06:44.212)
it so so clearly you know Purdue Global is dialed into success as a student and and in this case it’s Olympic athletes and so you’re you are totally committed to figuring out ways to wrap your services around their needs and it sounds a lot like a lot of our institutions do with military learners you know whether they’re deployed or whether they’re here or there are a lot of things that you have to to wrap around there but tell us a little bit about the impact on Purdue Global.

I mean, you gave us a little bit of the cultural hit, like it’s kind of a cool thing for your institution as well. What does it mean for your institution?

Kati Pratt (07:15.837)
Yeah. Yeah.

Kati Pratt (07:21.459)
So it’s an amazing opportunity for our institution to be to be involved in the Olympic movement, especially as we get on the road to LA 28. I mean, look at the excitement that we just had this summer with the World Cup, right? Like everybody gets behind it. Like and we’ve got that coming again in 2028, you know, in LA, and then some events are gonna be in Oklahoma City. So we have immense pride to be a part of that. And you know, the more that we get to know our student athletes and work with them, like then we have

Wes Smith (07:34.22)
Right.

Kati Pratt (07:50.812)
it becomes even more special for us because we have individuals that we’re invested in rooting for, right? Like win, lose, draw, whatever happens, like we are so invested in their journey and their story. And so it really makes the the whole the the whole games come to life in a new and exciting way for our entire for our our entire institution.

Wes Smith (07:57.816)
Right.

Wes Smith (08:12.458)
Love it. I love it. Okay, so I’ll finish with this question. Do you have any plans, any next steps for the work that you’re doing with Olympic athletes that you can share with us?

Kati Pratt (08:24.945)
I think we’re we’re always wanting to learn from our from our athletes, you know, like what’s working from them. So we’re continuously like trying to talk to them about like what’s working, what do they wish they knew before they signed up. So we’re continuously improving those pieces. And we just want to ensure that we can get the word out as much as we can that this benefit is available because it’s an amazing opportunity for them to be able to, you know, change their lives again after they’ve retired from sports.

Wes Smith (08:53.452)
Love it. Love it. Well, Katie, thank you so much for joining us today. And thanks to Purdue Global for for the work that you’re doing with, you know, guild and team USA supporting supporting our athletes. And we’re looking forward to staying abreast of your work in this in in in this Olympic work.

Kati Pratt (09:01.842)
You

Kati Pratt (09:11.965)
Thank you, I really appreciate the conversation.

Wes Smith (09:14.52)
Perfect. All right. Katie, I I will we are going to because we’re not live, I’m going to let me do that outro one more time. I don’t wanna I I just had a stumble there that I don’t wanna say the same word three times. So anyway.

Kati Pratt (09:34.449)
I know did I bumble like my opening thing about the thing too much?

Wes Smith (09:38.318)
We can we can I can give you any any other question again, but let me do the outro one more time so Chase can put a clean outro in. All right, here we go. Well, Katie, thank you so much for joining us today and telling us a little bit about Purdue Global’s work with the Olympic athletes and and and your partnership with guild and team USA. We appreciate it.

Kati Pratt (09:45.851)
No problem. Sorry. I was like, Yeah.

Kati Pratt (10:02.269)
Thank you, I really appreciate the conversation.

Wes Smith (10:04.632)
All the best.

Kati Pratt (10:06.418)
Me too.

Wes Smith (10:08.194)
All right. a did you Katie, did you want a question redone? Do you w d was there an area where you

Kati Pratt (10:15.581)
Did anything I mean I g I mean I guess I always second guess everything I say. did anything feel clunky as you were listening to me?

Wes Smith (10:23.158)
No. Nothing from my my perspective, Chase. Did you hear anything? Yeah. That seems pretty good. Yeah, I we’re on our side we we thought you were you’re you’re good. if there’s anything that was bothering you though, we’re not live, so we can I can ask you another question. are are there any questions that you wish that I would have asked?

Kati Pratt (10:36.563)
No, no, no.

Kati Pratt (10:44.463)
No, I thought it was a good overview. I l I like the tal I like talking about Ashley, that piece. As long as you guys think that it it sounded okay and I didn’t come off like a dumpkin, I’m okay.

Wes Smith (10:53.132)
I love it. I

Wes Smith (10:57.494)
No, no, no, no. It sounded great. And what we’ll do is we’ll probably cut a couple clips that we can put in social. One of those that that we’ll we’ll cut is the idea that you know Ashley is spreading the word too, you that you’re serving other athletes and things like that. I wanna make sure that people get the idea that, hey, yeah. Yeah, okay. Yeah, that’s that’s great. Okay. well

Kati Pratt (11:03.057)
Yeah. Great.

Kati Pratt (11:11.313)
Yeah. Yeah.

Kati Pratt (11:16.859)
Yeah, that’s the part I wanna hit. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Okay. No, I really appreciate it.

Wes Smith (11:23.106)
Well listen, if there’s anything that you ever want to give us an update on or there they’re