Reimagining Sport Management Programs Within Kinesiology and Public Health

Abstract

The growth of Sport Management programs in the United States over the past 50 years has sparked debate about where they should reside on college campuses. However, it has also provided significant opportunities for collaboration and integration with other academic programs in Kinesiology and Public Health. This paper explores relevant literature and current issues that highlight the intersection of sport management, physical activity, and health and then describes two academic programs that were redesigned to better integrate sport management and the health sciences. The Sport Marketing and Management program at Indiana University provides students with the opportunity to expand their business training, with particular emphasis on diversity, equity, and inclusion, through coursework in health and movement-related programs in the School of Public Health. The School of Kinesiology’s Applied Exercise Science program at the University of Michigan offers students the option of pursuing a management elective track that incorporates courses from the school’s Sport Management program. This paper provides leaders in Kinesiology with explicit examples of integrating kinesiology and public health with sport management and serves to encourage leaders to promote and support greater collaboration within units of Kinesiology and other health science programs.

Effects of School Nurse-Led Interventions in Collaboration with Kinesiologists in Promoting Physical Activity and Reducing Sedentary Behaviors in Children and Adolescents: A Systematic Review

“…Moreover, it is well known that exercise and sport science related to health involve not only physicians and other licensed health care practitioners but other figures as well, such as the kinesiologist, exercise trainer, or physical education teacher [40]. Despite this, kinesiologists started to be systematically involved in health promotion in schools only in the last few years [41]. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first systematic review that synthesizes the available evidence on health promotion interventions in schools, especially those conducted with the integration of these two professionals.…”

Leadership for the Future—Vision, Values, and Practice

“…It reports the results of an initiative at Capilano University to align experiential learning to better prepare graduates to enter industry. The third article in this programmatic set discusses a realignment of sport management programs, so they fit more closely with the norms of academic units with health science identities (George et al, 2022). As colleges and schools periodically reorganize, kinesiology departments sometimes find themselves within different configurations.…”