ON CAMPUS — Physical and recreational activities serve as a
vital component to a student’s well-being. It makes sense, then, that UCSD
offers a variety of recreational classes.
But unlike other
of
Berkeley, UC Santa Cruz and UC Santa Barbara, which advocate their recreational
classes by awarding units without added expense, students in
Jolla
activities.
So if a student’s recreational activity is such an important
aspect of this university, and other similar universities do so, why doesn’t
UCSD allow units for students who take advantage of recreational opportunities?
In order to participate in an activity of particular
interest, UCSD students are required to pay fees ranging from $40 to nearly
$300. They are then forced to take time out of their schedules to attend these
classes, purely out of satisfaction and interest in learning. Thus, students
are left with merely an option to be active; there is no administrative
incentive.
Admittedly, offering units for recreational activities would
require a physical education department that would need to review and reform
the existing courses to meet its standards. According to administrative
records, such a department existed from 1975 to 1994, but was discontinued due
to the university administration’s lack of “a clear understanding of the
department’s role in the university’s mission and its distinctness from the
roles of the departments of recreation and athletics.”
But a lack of understanding on the part of administrators
shouldn’t supplant the student’s right to earn credit for learning. Students
should be granted units for work they do and instruction they receive,
regardless of the specific department. Furthermore, UCSD has a dance department
that gives students credit for its classes, which are recreational in nature.
In order to standardize the school’s educational goals and the UC system’s
practices, similar units should be awarded for similar activities.
According to UC Berkeley’s physical education department Web
site, the university offers a variety of instructional as well as performance
courses in sequence to “develop and improve performance skills, to impart
knowledge and concepts relevant to the activity, to introduce information
concerning the fitness and health benefits of regular exercise and to help
students to develop and maintain physical fitness” — all without additional
cost. These courses are treated as actual classes, meaning that
students can take them for about half a unit and a grade.
UCSB’s department of exercise and sports studies also offers
similar programs, implementing sequential — elementary, intermediate and
advanced — levels of instruction. Not only does the department present lectures
along with activity courses, it also offers a minor in “exercise and sports
studies with emphasis in athletic coaching, exercise and health science,
fitness instruction or sport management.”
And save a few, all the courses bear no extra cost.
So, if other UC campuses are granting units for their
physical education courses without cost, why doesn’t UCSD?
One reason might be that today’s UCSD lacks a physical
education department. But why not reinstate it?
Obviously, the distinction administrators failed to see in
the 1994 physical education department must be the reason for their hesitation,
but the distinction is simple: such a department would instruct and develop
students’ knowledge of fitness and health through practical activity and
lecture courses, while the recreation department would provide leisure
opportunities to the people of
department would operate within tuition costs without extra costs for students,
while the recreation department could charge a fee. Finally, students would be
held accountable for attendance because of the grades and units they receive.
If UC Berkeley, UCSC and UCSB can do it, why can’t UCSD?
It is disheartening that while other schools encourage
physical education in this way, UCSD requires that its students pay hefty
prices without seeing any academic benefit.
Physical activity plays an important role for many students,
but they are forced to relinquish it due to their rigorous academic schedules.
By awarding credits for its recreational courses, not only would UCSD reward
the students who sacrifice their time to learn, but also encourage them to take
up activities that would prove beneficial to the students’ — and ultimately the
university’s — well-being.
