COLLEGE/SCHOOL APPROVAL PROCESS:
| Department: |
yes |
Date: 4/25/07 |
| College: |
yes |
Date: 5/7/07 |
| Dean: |
yes |
Date: 9/4/07 |
Memorandum attached for clarification to rationale:
October 5, 2007
Dr. David Hillis
Chair Elect Faculty Council &
Alfred W. Roark Centennial Professor
Section of Integrative Biology
The University of Texas at Austin
Via email
Dear Dr. Hillis,
Thank you for taking the time to meet with
Dr. John Ivy, the Chair of Kinesiology & Health
Education, and me yesterday to discuss the
proposed changes to the Undergraduate Curriculum
in Kinesiology & Health
Education. I also appreciate your willingness
to circulate this memo to the members of
the Faculty Council who have raised questions
about our proposed changes. I will try to
explain, as best I can, the history and rationale
for the curriculum changes we’ve
proposed.
History and Process: Following the Report
of the Commission of 125 in 2004 our department
decided to review its undergraduate curriculum.
We had concerns about several aspects of
our current program and decided we should
try to align our majors with the Commission’s
recommendation of a 120-hour limit for degrees.
A revision of the Undergraduate Curriculum
was set as one of our department’s
five-year goals when we adopted a new strategic
plan in 2005, and we began the formal process
of working on the curriculum in December
of 2005. Over the next 16 months the Undergraduate
Advisory Committee--which included representatives
from all the sub-disciplines in our department--met
more than twenty times to work on this curriculum
revision. Our planning was influenced by
the campus-wide curricular reforms approved
by Faculty Council last fall (with the move
to a common core of courses and the creation
of flag and signature classes). It was also
influenced by our department’s
self-assessment for SACs, which allowed us
to identify problems with our current offerings.
Input was solicited from every member of
the department and, when the final proposal
was ready, we called a department-wide meeting
on April 24, 2007, at which the faculty voted
unanimously to approve the new curriculum.
Because the plan calls for some restructuring
of faculty lines, the Kinesiology & Health
Education Budget Council ratified the proposal
on May 2, 2007. That vote was also unanimous.
The proposal then went to the Undergraduate
Advisory Committee of the College of Education
where, on May 7, 2007, it was also unanimously
approved. At all levels of the Department
and College we have had unanimous support
for the new curriculum.
Current Curriculum and Why Change Is Needed:
At present, the Department of Kinesiology
and Health Education offers the following
degree codes under its B.S. in Kinesiology
and Health: General Kinesiology, General
Kinesiology with Teacher Certification, Health
Promotion and Fitness, Sport Management,
and Athletic Training. We also have an additional
advising code called Pre-Sport Management,
which is used for students who need to begin
taking courses in our department so that
they can apply for admission to the Sport
Management program in their junior year.
We have also serviced a small number of students
(generally 25-30 a year) who are pursuing
the B.A. in Kinesiology through the College
of Liberal Arts. We supported dropping this
major from the 2006 Undergraduate Catalog
because of the administrative confusion caused
by students from Liberal Arts seeking advising
by our staff, and because of the open-ended
nature of the B.A.--which did not stipulate
a sequence of required coursework in Kinesiology.
We were not opposed to the idea of a humanities/social
science major in Kinesiology and Health.
We supported dropping the degree, when the
College of Liberal Arts suggested it, because
of the administrative issues.
One of our main concerns in this process
of revision has been the fate of the students
in the Pre-Sport Management code. Because
of the size of our faculty, the Sport Management
major is limited to 125 students. Admission
to the program has become increasingly
competitive and for the past several years
students admitted to the program have averaged
at least a 3.2 overall UT GPA. The problem
is that the students who do not gain admission
to Sport Management have no other major
under which they can graduate in Kinesiology
and Health because, for the most part,
they have not been taking the science and
laboratory-based classes that would allow
them to graduate under General Kinesiology
or Health Promotion and Fitness. To try
to graduate under these majors would mean
taking considerable additional coursework
and would substantially lengthen their
time at Texas. They can’t transfer to Liberal
Arts and try to finish up there because the
B.A. in Kinesiology no longer exists and,
in any case, most such students don’t
have the right sequence of General Education
requirements for Liberal Arts. The only viable
option for these students is to transfer
to the Youth and Community Studies major
in the College of Education, which accepts
most of their coursework. While this allows
them to graduate, it has not been a popular
solution because the student’s degree
does not say “Kinesiology
and Health” and because it does not
represent the major focus of their efforts
and interests.
The desire to reform our curriculum, was
not, of course, driven solely by concern
for these pre-sport management students.
Of far greater concern to us was the need
to have all our majors leave the department
with a common core of knowledge. We want
our undergraduate students to have a basic
understanding of exercise physiology, to
understand the complex mechanisms involved
in human movement, and to have an appreciation
of the socio-cultural dynamics of sport and
human activity. We also want to provide students
the opportunity to use some of their electives
to specialize in career-based coursework
portfolios in such areas as disability studies,
strength and conditioning coaching, community
health and wellness, and medical fitness
and rehabilitation, so that they are more
suited for the job market.
The curriculum we’ve developed thus
incorporates an 18 hour common core of courses
for all majors under the B.S. in Kinesiology
and Health. Students interested in the scientific
aspects of human movement—who
would formerly have been General Kinesiology
majors—will
now major in Exercise Science. Students pursuing
teacher certification—who also majored
in General Kinesiology—will now major
in Applied Movement Science. Students with
an interest in health will take the major
in Health Promotion rather than the Health
Promotion and Fitness degree, and the Sport
Management students who get admitted will
complete that program—the name of which
has not changed. The only “new” degree
in the curriculum is the major in Physical
Culture and Sports, which is, in reality,
a replacement for the pre-sport management
advising code and the now-defunct B.A.
in Kinesiology offered through Liberal
Arts. (The major in Athletic Training will
be offered as a separate B.S. in Athletic
Training beginning in 2008.)
Student Demographics: For the past several
years our department has had more than
900 majors. In the fall of 2007 we currently
have 915 registered majors. Only 89 of
our majors are student-athletes—less
than 10% of our total population.
Major in Physical Culture and Sports: You
mentioned that particular questions had
been raised about the major in Physical
Culture and Sports. I hope I have already
addressed some of those concerns in this
memo with my explanation of the loss of
the B.A. in Kinesiology and the logic of
having a degree that our pre-sport management
students can complete should they fail
to be admitted to Sport Management. I also
want to state, unequivocally, that we are
not concerned--or anticipating--that this
degree will become a popular choice for
student-athletes who “are
not academically qualified.” Exactly
this same argument was made by some outside
our department when we asked permission to
begin our Sport Management program in the
late 1980s. The record of the Sport Management
program—now
ranked Number One in the United States—demonstrates
how inaccurate that perception has proven
to be. The Department of Kinesiology and
Health Education is a department with rigorous
academic standards that, in our judgment
will not be compromised with the addition
of this new major in Physical Culture and
Sports. As further proof of this I might
note that, in order to control enrollment
in our department, we passed a rule in
2006 requiring any student with more than
36 hours of coursework to have a 3.0 overall
GPA before they can transfer into the Department
of Kinesiology and Health Education.
I should also note that this degree was
desired, in part, because of the new academic
research center in our department--the
Stark Center for the Study of Physical
Culture and Sports. The Center’s
new facility will open in the fall of 2008
and this degree will allow our students to
make more meaningful use of the holdings
in the Stark Center archives. The term “Physical
Culture” is
an old term that has been revived in academic
discourse in the sport humanities over the
past 20 years or so as a way to describe
the broad spectrum of activities that lead
toward health and fitness. It is a term that
encompasses exercise, nutrition, and psychological
aspects of human movement. As an indication
of the growing use of this term, The New
York Times now runs a regular section each
Thursday called “Physical Culture.” We
considered calling the new degree “Sport
Studies,” but our department has a
strong health focus and we wanted to acknowledge
that focus in the name of this major. Across
the United States, many programs at other
universities are called “The Department
of Kinesiology and Sport Studies.”.
Finally, the Physical Culture and Sports
Major is not at all unique. Comparable undergraduate
programs include:
· The University of Maryland’s major
in “Physical Cultural Studies.” On
their web: “The complexity of contemporary
sport culture demands a synthesis of pertinent
disciplinary knowledge, theories and methods…thus
the core curriculum within the Physical Cultural
Studies Program can be said to be a synthesis
of elements drawn from…communication,
cultural studies, economics, geography,
history, marketing, psychology, sociology
and urban studies.”
· The University of Iowa offers a BA in
Health and Sport Studies with a “Sport Studies
Track.” In that program students take courses
in: Women, Sport and Culture; Race and Ethnicity
in Sport; Sport and Media; 20th Century Sport;
The Olympics-Ancient and Modern; Sport and Nationalism;
Western World Sport, Sport in US to 1900; and so
on.
· The University of New Hampshire offers
an interdisciplinary major in Sport Studies that
allows students to focus in either sport history,
sport psychology, performance enhancement, sport
law, or one of the traditional areas of sport management—sport
marketing, event management, athletic administration
or basic athletic training. Students are encouraged
to double-major, with psychology and business being
highly recommended. The core courses are “are
designed to introduce the student to the extensive
literature on sport as a mass social phenomenon,
an industry and a career path. Several courses
are grounded in a cognate discipline (ex: psychology,
sociology). One course introduces students to the
complex nature of the sport industry. Another course
examines the principles of coaching and leadership
in sport. Another provides a foundation in sport
psychology.”
· SUNY-Courtland offers a major in Sport
Studies. On their web: “What is Sport Studies?
Interestingly enough, Sport Studies is the liberal
arts and science approach to studying human movement
through the humanities and social science sub-disciplines
of the field. The humanities sub-disciplines include
sport history and sport philosophy, and can be
expanded to include sport art, sport communication
and journalism, sport literature and sport law.
The social science sub-disciplines include sport
psychology and sport sociology.”
· Towson University offers a Sport Studies
major with two tracks: a Psychology of Sport concentration
and a Sport Humanities concentration. Their Sport
Humanities track requires students to take courses
on the Modern Olympics. Sport Philosophy, Exercise
Psychology, Sport and the Media, and Women in Sport.
· Central Michigan University offers a major
in Sport Studies that requires coursework in both
sport humanities—history, sociology, psychology,
sport law—and sport administration classes.
· Miami University also offers a Sport Studies
major. “This major program allows students
who have a keen interest in sport to study it from
a cross-disciplinary perspective which includes
psychological, sociological and historical orientations
to analysis.”
· The University of Georgia also offers
a major in Sport Studies—again humanities
based—in a joint program with Journalism.
There are also a number of international programs
that offer humanities-based Sport Studies majors—particularly
the University of Queensland, University of
Herefordshire and Loughborough University in
England. .
In closing I’d like to thank you again
for allowing us the opportunity to address some
of the questions about our new curriculum. If
anyone has any other questions, please let them
know that either Dr. John Ivy or I will be happy
to address them.
Sincerely,
Jan Todd, Ph.D.
Undergraduate Advisor and Associate Professor
Fellow in the Roy J. McLean Fellowship in Sport
History
Department of Kinesiology and Health Education
The University of Texas at Austin
471-4890
Dr. Ivy may be reached at 471-8599 or at johnivy@mail.utexas.edu |
