The University of Idaho Argonaut

Programs not being used by students

For the past two years the physical education department has been undergoing a series of changes to increase efficiency.
“Is what we’re doing the best we can? Are students being prepared for life after Idaho?” said Kathy Browder, the physical education department chair. “We had to look at ourselves and see if we are being good stewards of the resources we have.”
Last year the program consolidated two major schools, community health and sports sciences. This year, it will be joining the exercise sciences and health.
The program will also eliminate six minors and certificates from its repertoire. The eliminated programs are social dance, sports ethics, recreation, online instruction certificate, dance performance and character education certificate.

“A lot of what we’re trying to do involves reducing the redundancy in our department. For example, we found that people who wanted to really study dance needed more involvement then a minor would allow,” Browder said. “You can’t be a performer with minimal practice.”
The number of students affected by the change is expected to be small. Very few people are involved in these programs and some of them have gone whole years without anyone seeking a degree. Social dance averages one person a year.
“These are really specific minors, so with social dance we started rethinking it to see if we could fold it into dance performance,” she said.

The recreation minor only averaged one to two students over the course of five years. According to Browder, the broad nature of a recreation minor was not preparing students. The department instead joined forces with the College of Natural Resources to replace the program with programs for outdoor leadership and sustainable tourism.

Browder sees this year as the “clean up work” necessary in the reevaluation of the program.
“It’s important that everything we teach is relevant and current, that’s one of the reasons we’re creating a core program,” she said.
This is the first core curriculum the physical education department has offered. Browder sees its introduction as an effort to make sure that crucial issues are explored by students.
“One of the major problems in our society today is obesity, all majors should intend to deal with that, especially with children,” she said. “You may not think of dance in that way, but dancing is a fun activity and a great way to keep children healthy.”

As a whole, the physical education department works to better the health of those at the University of Idaho campus. Currently they offer more than 200 fitness classes a year, attended by between 400 and 500 students. Browder said that one of the programs qualities is its commitment to listening to the desires of students and trying to offer classes relevant to them.
“I’m really excited about this, I believe that these will only improve the quality of our program and I’m eager to see the results,” she said.