Kinesiology & Athletics
2021-2022 Program Review

The program-level planning unit is a collection of faculty, staff, and support services that provide a wide range of instructional opportunities to serve the ARC student population. We are a collection of dedicated teachers, coaches, full time and part-time staff, and amazing support services. We are diverse, performance driven, and sweaty! Our purpose and function is to provide each student in our class an experience that challenges them in the present, and provides a knowledge base for on-going physical fitness and wellness once they leave our campus. Our desire is that every student exit our classes with informative experiences, and motivation to continue to seek a life of fitness, physical activity, and overall health.

The Kinesiology and Athletics department contributes to the mission of American River College in multiple facets. We place students first in providing an academically rich, inclusive environment that inspires critical thinking, learning and achievement, and responsible participation in the community. Our instructors are on the front lines of physical and overall health issues our society is facing. We offer education and support for students to strengthen kinesthetic skills, earn associate degrees and certificates, transfer to other colleges and universities, and achieve career as well as other academic and personal goals.

We challenge our students to learn about their body, mind, and the interaction between learning, achievement, and responsible participation in our community. The Area provides challenging degree programs for transfer, and vocational certificates and training. We provide a unique, highly specialized, high performance experience for student athletes. Some of the greatest success stories on this campus are our student athletes. Many of our athletes come from marginalized and disadvantaged populations. They find success at ARC due to a coach, and an academic support system that is determined to provide each student a unique pathway to success.

The Kinesiology and Athletics Area has had a multitude of challenges since our last Program review cycle in 2010-11. We have had 3 permanent Dean/AD's and 3 interim Dean/AD's. Faculty and faculty leadership did a good job during these transitional times of serving our students and student athletes as best we could. Obviously COVID created a whole new set of issues for our mostly impossible to convert curriculum. I believe our faculty embraced the challenges and provided learning opportunities for students while finding new ways to reach student athletes and have a powerful, and much needed influence in their lives during the shutdown.

We have 2 years of Annual Unit Planning and have begun the learning process on how the AUP and PR will work together to more accurately guide us with reaching students in our Area in an impactful way. We have 2 AUP items that require significant funding so there is no measurement of progress yet to report. The 2 items are Intercollegiate Women's Beach Volleyball and a Communications/Social Media Specialists. The aforementioned is a step towards progress on Title IX, the later is a much needed person that understands the digital world we live in and can help the KA Area market classes, athletics, degrees and certificates, and special events.

Outcomes from the 2010-11 cycle seem a distant blur and provide historical significance to see where we have been. I am proud to state that we are a professional group of instructors and coaches that promote fitness, healthy lifestyles, and desire to engage each student where they are. We have not lost sight of any of those objectives in spite of the world around us looking completely different. We are affected by legislative issues beyond our reach, a much more nimble competitor in the private sector health industry, and the constant searching for resources.

As our Area begins to incorporate data into how we "do our business" we will need help. We will need help in understanding the data from an application standpoint. Most coaches use some degree of data, statistics, in viewing a teams performance. We believe a similar approach will help us understand how to better provide relevant educational opportunities for our students.

Clearly COVID has been very hard on our enrollments and productivity. With many of our classes in the impossible to convert category it makes sense that we took a hard hit. Since 2010-11 we have had LAO remove repeatability, and, additional financial aid changes that played a very real role in productivity. The Area is having hearty conversations and is taking steps to convert as many classes as possible to DE so we have more flexibility to meet students new interests in online learning versus on campus.

Our Athletics programs are robust and continue to provide stability within the Sport classes. Recruiting and retaining student athletes is challenging and there has been more difficulty in women's sports in this Area. We are in need of new strategies to reach student athletes that have many options locally to play sports. Historically, our Area has recognized, mentored, and otherwise provided guidance for DI students. For decades Area coaches and instructors have demonstrated eagerness in helping our student populations with the highest degree of need. While years ago there was little language to describe DI we recognized our roles in helping those most disadvantaged. We are a compassionate caring group of instructors and will continue reaching humanity through our love of fitness, health, and athletics.

The conversation related to our units effectiveness and data is somewhat difficult. We do not understand the data in a larger sense, but more specifically we do not know how the data will help us deal with low enrollments and declining productivity. We need understanding of the data in layman's language and guidance that is relevant. As the campus begins to come back post COVID with more robust class offerings throughout the day it is natural to assume our enrollments will improve. Riding the wake is not enough and we are actively changing our approach to how we address our effectiveness.

In the future we are developing our own internal student questionnaire that will dig down a little to find what motivates students to take our classes. We are implementing a questionnaire this semester with the plan of using our own internal data to help us schedule more effectively. Additionally, we are moving as many classes as possible to hybrid or DE. We are also looking through our curriculum to see what classes we can add and/or re-introduce. We all agree we need to become more nimble as we move into an era in higher education that seems to be moving away from the classroom and onto the screen.

I suppose in an ideal future our enrollments would stabilize, our internal data would give us the blue print for the right balance between in person and on line learning, our degree programs would be robust, and our teams would win State Championships every year!. The reality is we are going through transitional growing pains and like all of us know in higher education progress is usually slow. What we can do right now is what was stated above. Find out why students take our classes and give them opportunity and flexibility as they chose classes. We also believe the campus can help us to some extent. Each of you reading this has bought something from Amazon, they always tell you "people who bought this also bought this" and just like that you have 2 items you never planned on purchasing! We need to sell what we do, which is the importance of fitness and healthy living. Applying some similar technology could benefit our Area, and perhaps other areas on campus, where students maybe taking a class to supplement their major or vocational tract. In Kinesiology we are competing with health clubs and fitness apps that are far more adept at changing. Becoming more digitally astute will require institutional support in resources beyond what we can create internally. Perhaps quicker feet will help us all.

We are confident that with new leadership in our Area and an emphasis on becoming better in providing hybrid and DE learning, coupled with a strong commitment to getting sweaty with our classes, we can emerge from being rather antiquated to a dynamic part of the ARC educational environment. As we move forward with these changes we will be positively effecting academic quality and our institutional effectiveness. We will continue to work towards the college mission providing an academically rich, inclusive environment that inspires critical thinking, learning and achievement, and responsible participation in the community. As has been our way in Kinesiology and Athletics for decades we embrace the ARC mission and desire to provide access, mentoring, role modeling, and to be instruments of change in a persons life.

Our area has two program level objectives which will enhance our units effectiveness. The first is to add Intercollegiate Women's Beach Volleyball. WBV is the fastest growing CCCAA and NCAA/NAIA sport. With additional intercollegiate beach volleyball curriculum and general classes for students we will provide more opportunity for female student athletes and our student population in general. We believe this will provide growth, and productivity. The addition of another women's sport to ARC will contribute to the continued efforts in Title IX requirements. The objective is to provide a high level of service to our students, community, and to one another. The goal falls under SG4, vibrancy and resiliency.

The second program level objective is to create a more contemporary digital approach to how we schedule classes, promote degrees and certificates, and provide greater community outreach in general. We believe the institutional commitment to this effort will provide increased productivity through digital marketing. We support the creation of and hiring for a Media Communications Specialist. The objective is to foster relationships with students. The goal falls under SG1, students first.

Assuming we are able to move forward with these program level objectives and have the ability to collect, interpret and act on relevant data, we would expect to see continued progress in Title IX, increased enrollment and productivity in classes, and retention of students in our degree and certificate programs.

The Kinesiology and Athletics division has a legacy of doing the work of social justice and equity. As Title IX became law in 1972 the process of reflection, inclusivity, and action on equity began. Clearly, adding WBV will continue ARC's progress towards Title IX compliance. Becoming more nimble in the online and digital marketing of our classes, degrees, and teams will add to our campuses vitality. Additionally, we strive to uphold the dignity and humanity of every student we encounter and colleague we engage. We are committed to equity and social justice through equity-minded education, transformative leadership, and community engagement. We believe this commitment is essential to achieving our mission and enhancing our community. We are a group of people that reject inflammatory language or actions, and we embrace dignity for everyone we serve and the college community at large.

Our Area has never been afraid of dealing with difficult issues. Instructors engage students of all colors and life experiences with the single mindedness of empowering our students to engage in life long physical and mental health. We are not afraid to intervene where we sense issues beyond our skill set may be required. Specifically for coaches and others that see and serve athletes on a regular, daily basis, there is no backing away from helping our student athletes realize their full potential. Coaches are uniquely attached to our students. We recruit them, we meet the significant people in their lives, we invest in them.

Our degrees in Dance, Recreation and Kinesiology are vigorous, highly specialized degrees led by skilled professionals. The wide range of students engaged in these degree programs reflect our community and college values. Our Area will continue to advance opportunity for all of our students and fully embrace our role in education.