Student benefits
- Half of our male students and a third of our female students are medically overfat for their age. They face increased risks of heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, and, for the women, some types of cancer due to their body fat levels. The academic youth of this nation are unfit.
- A strong, healthy body is beneficial to the development of the mind.
- Athletics provide a sense of pride of place and have proven side effects on scholastic performance and self-esteem.
- Running has, in some studies, reduced rates of teen pregnancy.
- Joggling teaches multi-threaded thinking. Joggling strengthens the mind's ability to handle the multi-dimensionality of life.
Institutional benefits
- Physical education is an existing requirement in our education major. We have been waiving the requirement due to a lack of course offerings. Given, however, the body fat levels of our students waiving the requirement seems inappropriate.
- Physical education is a common general education requirement at college's around the world. I would like to see PE in our general education core. Offering the course solves the chicken and egg problem wherein I am requesting the addition of requirement that is not being offered.
- The course will begin to gauge the overall demand for PE courses and provide a foundation upon which to build, should the institution decide to do so, further programming.
- The course outline is offered as a potential model for subsequent outlines. The outline introduces the idea of pass/fail grades for PE courses. The course also introduces the concept of creating PE courses as a subsection of PE 101 rather than as separate entities under their own course number. The outline includes sections on safety and suggested language for a PE release form.
- The use of a PE 101 subsection approach leaves the door open for other faculty to offer sports in which they specialize. We will still need full time PE faculty, but no PE instructor will be competent in all possible sports found among our own faculty and staff. Among our employees are volleyball, basketball, baseball, football (by that I mean the sport that American's mistakenly call soccer), and aerobic exercise. At the University of Illinois I took an aerobic dance course. Substitute the word "Yapese" for "aerobic" and you would have a PE course appropriate to Micronesian studies majors. No PE instructor we hire could cover the full range of sports in Micronesia or the broader world.
- The existence of a PE course helps drive forward the concept of a Division of Kinesiology with its own faculty.
Divisional Matters and Impacts
- The course is not an attempt to run PE from the Division of Natural Science and Mathematics under a health education moniker. The outline currently has no division specified. The hope is that a Division of Kinesiology will eventually be created to house these programs.
- Course is not a heavy load for me. I have been running for 24 years and joggling for eight years.
- I've reached out from traditional math and science duties to provide assistance to broader institution in the past. I completely left the division in 1995 and joined the business division to oversee an overhaul in the way the business computer laboratory was run. From that post I helped lay the groundwork for the computer systems now in place at the Palikir campus.
- The Division of Natural Science and Mathematics computer laboratory is behind the power curve because it is due for a turnover of equipment. The equipment is failing due to old age. The computers have had six years of heavy usage. If all goes well, the lab should be getting new computers this summer. This is actually a year earlier than I had planned for in my original 1997 turnover plan.
Personal reasons
- The course provides an opportunity to give something back to a sport I've known and loved for over half my life. If I might be so bold I'd risk saying I have wisdom from years of experience. I believe it is time for me to share this knowledge with a new generation before my own body denies me the ability to do so.
- Joggling is still a niche sport and joggling instructors are far and few in between. While running and jogging courses are de rigeur at other schools, the addition of juggling makes our course unique.
- The course provides an opportunity for me to get in a little daytime exercise.
Why now?
- The purchase of a body composition analyzer late last year led to confirmation that the student's body fat levels are quite high. Beyond this, I've now watched a number of students unsuccessfully battle their own rising body fat percentages since the acquisition of the analyzer. I have students who are trying to stay fit and are failing.
- After Founding Day, Charles noted that our students are not just out of shape, they cannot even run.
Why me?
- If I am not part of a solution then I am part of the problem.
- Who else on campus could teach running?
- I want to pilot the concept of faculty and staff offering sports courses at the college to expand the range of PE offering beyond what a single PE instructor will be capable of delivering.
Why joggling?
- Pohnpei is rainy. The juggling side of joggling provides a natural indoor alternative on days when swimming pools worth of water are falling from the sky. We can run in light rain, but on days of heavy rain we can juggle in the gym.
- Joggling is an incredibly aerobic activity. The number of calories burned per unit time is exceeded only by swimming the butterfly.
- Running does nothing for the jiggle wings that develop with age under the upper arms. Joggling tones more muscles than running while benefitting the cardiovascular system.