Sport Performance Is Only Program Of Its Kind In Country
Inspired to expand their offerings, several professors and administrators at Southern Virginia University came up with a new way of incorporating sports into the academic curriculum this year.
Spearheaded by SVU philosophy professor John Armstrong, they decided that treating sports as a performance art would help the university grow, and the discussion evolved into creating a new major: Sport Performance. The major is the first of its kind in the country, and Armstrong, accompanied by colleagues, had the opportunity to present it at a conference called the Sports Major Collective at Nike’s New York City headquarters on June 25.
At the conference, Armstrong spoke to an audience of nearly 150 college professors, administrators, coaches and athletes. When he announced that SVU had approved the major, the room lit up with cheering and applause, said SVU vice president of athletics and strategic growth James Ballstaedt, who joined Armstrong for the conference, as did the school’s vice president of advancement and development, Deidra Dryden.
As of last Wednesday, with registration still ongoing, 31 students had signed up for Armstrong’s introductory class, titled Excellence in Sport and Life. Armstrong expected to have about 40 students in his class when the school year starts next Wednesday. “This is gonna be a fun course to teach,” said Armstrong.
Describing the major, Armstrong, who is beginning his 28th year of teaching at SVU, said, “What’s novel about it is it treats sport as a performance art, similar to music or dance. There are some programs that are exercise science programs across the country. There are some programs that are sports studies programs that study the history or sociology of sport. This program includes that kind of coursework – that’s optional – but the heart of it is actual participation in competitive sport, just as if you were a violin performance major, you would have to learn to play a violin and perform violin.” “The idea would be that universities across the country should take more seriously the learning that takes place in preparing for and participating in sports competitions, the intelligence that takes, the training that it takes,” added Armstrong.
page A11 ABOVE, SVU philosophy professor John Armstrong gives a presentation on the school’s new Sport Performance major at the Sports Major Collective conference at Nike’s New York City headquarters on June 25. Listening onstage are (seated, from left) Erianne Weight, the director of the University of North Carolina’s Center for Research in Intercollegiate Athletics; Eric Carter, assistant vice president for student success and academic growth at Lindsey Wilson College; Lou Matz, philosophy professor of the University of the Pacific; and David Hollander, assistant dean of Real World and clinical professor for the Tisch Institute for Global Sport at New York University. AT LEFT, Armstrong (second from right) smiles while standing with (from left) Hollander, James Ballstaedt, SVU vice president of athletics and strategic growth; Deidra Dryden, SVU vice president of advancement and development; and John Jowers, vice president of communications for Nike North America. (Richard Bah photos)
One of the requirements of the Sport Performance major is participation in one or more sports. Armstrong noted that about half of SVU’s students are athletes. SVU, which has an enrollment of a little more than 1,000 students. Not all of the students are on NCAA Division III teams, but many are on club teams that are still varsity sports, such as cheer, dance and rugby.
Support From Other Academics
Armstrong started thinking about the idea for the major after reading a Jan. 30 article in The New York Times titled “Should ‘Sports’ Be a College Major?” Shortly after reading the article, he shared it and discussed it with several of his colleagues at SVU and contacted several of the academics quoted in the article.
While discussing the subject matter of the article, Armstrong made a proposal to several of his colleagues – English professor Scott Dransfield, associate professor of psychology Alan Whitehead and athletic director Josh Monsen – to start the Sport Performance major at SVU.
Voicing his support, Dransfield said, “I think this is a very interesting new approach to the humanities. That’s what I look forward to, to give athletes a great liberal arts education while they’re pursuing their passion.” Armstrong has encouraged Dransfield to teach a course on sport in literature as the program develops.
After hearing from Armstrong, two of the academics quoted in the New York Times article wrote letters of support for establishing the major at SVU.
One of them was Erianne Wright, the director of the University of North Carolina’s Center for Research in Intercollegiate Athletics in Chapel Hill. In her Feb. 10 letter, Wright, a professor in Exercise and Sport Science who was an outside reviewer of the proprosal for the new program, wrote, “This program has the potential to redefine the integration of athletics into higher education and serve as a national model for bridging the traditional divide between athletics and academia.
“For decades, sport has been treated as an extracurricular activity – separate from and, at times, even at odds with an institution’s academic mission,” Wright continued. “However, a rich foundation of research and evolving conversations at institutions nationwide affirm that athletic participation fosters a range of intellectual, leadership and character-building outcomes that align with the goals of higher education. Just as music, dance and theatre majors engage in performance-based learning while complementing their craft with rigorous theoretical study, this emphasis will provide student- athletes with a structured, academically rich framework to develop their skills and reflect on their experiences in meaningful ways.”
“This proposal is at the forefront of a necessary revolution – one that acknowledges the deep intellectual and developmental value of sport and positions student-athletes to translate their on-field experiences into lifelong skills applicable in leadership, business, health sciences and beyond,” added Wright. “I commend the thoughtfulness, depth and vision of this proposal, and I strongly encourage its approval. SVU has the chance to set a precedent for higher education by embracing the academic value of sport and providing its students with a uniquely enriching pathway that integrates athletic and intellectual growth.”
Wright will be at SVU on Monday, Sept. 8 to give a lecture in the school’s ballroom from 11 a.m. to 12:15 p.m., with questions and answers after. The lecture, open to all, is titled “Becoming the Best Version of Yourself: The Art of Science And Expertise.”
Also writing in support of the proposal was David Hollander, assistant dean of Real World and clinical professor for the Tisch Institute for Global Sport at New York University. In his Feb. 14 letter, Holland said the program proposed by SVU “is not only academically correct, but it is historic in leading an overdue paradigm shift in what athletics means to the academy.”
“Whether one is in academia or not, it’s hard for anyone to refute the common-sense analogy of sports and the arts,” added Hollander. “Consider that today, at most colleges and universities, you can get a degree in art, music, dance, or drama. Those are totally valid degrees. They are excellent portals to the human condition, teaching a student majoring in those subjects about history, anthropology, human relations and more. And for each of those degrees, part of learning is the doing of the thing. You dance and you understand the nature of bodies, space and physical expression. You act and understand what it’s like to be someone else. You paint and you reflect and refract the zeitgeist of your world.”
Hollander, like Armstrong and his SVU colleagues, emphasized that it is important to value the doing of sport as a scholarly activity.
Skeptics To The Major
While many are excited about the new major, there are some skeptics about whether it is appropriate.
In addition to skeptics quoted in the New York Times article, SVU biology professor Jared Lee voiced his concerns. “SVU hasn’t added any majors since 2017, and this last spring we added two, Sport Performance and environmental studies,” said Lee. “Honestly, from my perspective, I’ve never seen a major program get approved so quickly as Sport Performance. I would’ve liked to have seen a lot more deliberation, research and discussion.”
“When a university wants to add a new major or a new program of any kind, minor or whatever, they have faculty wanting to oppose it do some research,” added Lee. “We look at other institutions that have that kind of program. We use it as kind of a metric to make sure that what we’re offering are on par for what is normal for the field. This is new, and it’s exciting in some respects. There are aspects of it that I think are very intriguing.”
Lee questioned if SVU is qualified to offer the Sport Performance major, as there are no faculty members with a Ph.D. in that field, the standard for every other major program.
He also noted that, unlike other majors, the Sport Performance is not accessible to all students, only those that participate in sports.
Moving Forward
Despite others’ doubts about whether or not the program will succeed, Armstrong and his colleagues are pushing forward.
“The focus of the program is about character and leadership,” said Armstrong, emphasizing that training for sports competitions help develop character and leadership skills.
“We’re very excited,” added Armstrong. “The students are interested. Interest is going to, I think, be going up as the students return because it’s so new. We’ve already had some students declare it as their major.”
