Hello, To all who took the time to respond to my enquiry regarding faculty organization, thank you very much. The question seemed to have touched a nerve with quite a few of you based on the number of requests to send results. Responses are still trickling in, but I think the picture is pretty clear now. Or maybe I should say that it seems clear now that the picture is very cloudy.
First, I received about 70 replies. I have not bothered to present percentages; you can do the math if you wish. The first impression that emerges is that our field definitely struggles with an identity problem as an academic discipline within the greater university community. No big surprise there. I think we know who we are and what we do, but university administrators who draw (re)-organizational charts often do not. As the list below shows, sport science has been organized under about every possible faculty one can imagine, somewhere. And, there is a dynamic state of flux with at least 10 percent of the institutions in the process of “reorganizing” at any given time, based on this little snapshot. However, there are some typical organizational structures that emerge: The most common response was that we are part of a College of Education. Based on this survey, this is now a structure found almost exclusively in the US (I recall one response from Mexico as well), where teacher education and a major in Physical Education is the historical basis, even as numerous non-teaching, health and exercise science type majors have emerged over the last 20-30 years. The second most common structure is that sport sciences is organized under a Health Sciences umbrella. This solution seems to be the most “international.” The 3rd most common solution reported was that Human Movement Studies or Sport Science had been organized as a freestanding Division/Faculty/School. This sounds great if you are big enough to pull it off. These three organizational structures make up over half of all the responses. After that, well, read for yourself. Sport Science has been placed all over ………for reasons that in some cases are probably only understood within the local political sphere of each institution. Whoops, I think I am projecting here, or some psychology term like that. Beyond the first three approaches, I can say that the general organizational leaning around the world is to align sport and physical education with the natural and biological sciences, and not social sciences. However, it could be that the composition of this list biases the findings in that direction. What was the suggestion for my faculty that I found so weird? Well, they (a supposedly, but not really, “external” commission) wanted to split out the nursing program and merge it with a parallel nursing education program in another city (although still part of our university). Then, what was left of the former Faculty of Health and Sport (nursing education, food and nutrition, sport science and sport education, outdoor recreation, physical education, and continuing education in health related professions) would be moved to the Faculty of …….Art and Culture, along with music, dance, textile arts, etc. The rationale given is built up like a thin house of cards. Let’s just say that when the ulterior political motives are powerful enough, what is good for the students and the academic discipline takes a back seat on the bus. A VERY weird proposal yes, but unprecedented? Unfortunately not (for my purposes). Here is the breakdown of responses in detail: College of Education 18 ( 1 of these was named Institute of Education, another is moving to Faculty of Health Science) Faculty/School/College of Health Sciences/Health Professions/Health and Human Services - 13 Free standing Division/Faculty/School/ of Human Movement and or Sport Sciences/ Physical Education/ Kinesiology - 9 Faculty of Medicine/Medical Science- 4 Faculty/Dept of Life Sciences or Biological Sciences 3 Faculty of Arts and Sciences 2 Other groupings that we sorted out under: School of Health and Natural Sciences- Dept of Health and Human Performance School of Science and Engineering- School of Biological Sciences Institute for Systems and Membrane Biology Faculty of Computing, Health, and Science- School of Exercise School of Fine and Applied Arts- Dept. of Health, Leisure and Exercise Science Faculty of Arts, Education and Human Development Faculty of Social Sciences- Dept of Exercise Science Faculty of Philosophy- Inst of Sport Science and Sport (at a traditional German University) Faculty of Science Faculty of Business- School of Leisure, Sport and Tourism Faculty of Applied Technology (respondent said that this included everything from accountancy to mechanical engineering) Faculty of Empirical Human Science (A subdivision of the Philosophical Faculty)-Also a German University Faculty of Philosophy- Institute for Sport Science (now, but in 2008 they close and join ranks with the German University of Sport in Cologne) College of Liberal Arts, Social Sciences Division- Dept of Phys Ed. School of Humanities (along with English, History, Linguistics, Religious Studies, Philosophy, and Art History) School of Science and Technology- Dept of Kinesiology School of Health and Natural Sciences- Dept of Health and Human Performance Faculty of Science, Engineering and Health- School of Health and Human Performance Another Faculty of Science, Engineering and Health (were in Faculty of Arts, Health, and Sciences but got moved in a Faculty rationalization move) Undergraduate department under School of Health, Graduate department under Medical School One program was split such that the Sport Science program was under the Faculty of Science and the PE and Sport Studies program was under the Faculty of Education Another program was actually split among 3 faculties: the Faculties of Education, Science, and Arts OK, back to doing some science. -- Stephen Seiler PhD Associate Professor Faculty of Health and Sport Agder University College Service box 422 4604 Kristiansand Norway [EMAIL PROTECTED] tel: 47 3814 1347 fax: 47 3814 1301 Post messages to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To (un)subscribe, send any message to sportscience-(un)[EMAIL PROTECTED] View all messages at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sportscience/. 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