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Amy Morris Homans had a vision that graduates of the Boston Normal School of Gymnastics and Wellesley College would make physical education a well-respected profession. The professional preparation received by her students equipped them to be educators, administrators, and future leaders of physical education. The purpose of this essay is to examine the socialization process that doctoral students in kinesiology experience as they prepare for their roles as future faculty in higher education. New faculty members quickly discover that they must be more productive than their predecessors, and they must possess broader talents to meet the societal expectations placed on university faculty. Three simultaneous socialization processes will be discussed: the role of the graduate student, the roles and way of life of faculty in higher education, and into the discipline. How can doctoral faculty better prepare future faculty to meet the expectations of the tenure and promotion process? Strategies by which the doctoral experience may be reformed to improve doctoral socialization are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper, which was given as the Dudley Allen Sargent lecture at the 2012 conference of the National Association for Kinesiology and Physical Education in Higher Education, discusses the politics of physical education. It examines how both national politics and local/campus politics affect the discipline. Drawing from the history of national leaders from both the Republican and Democratic parties and from the autobiography of Dudley Sargent, it demonstrates the important role that politics plays in the lives of Kinesiology and Physical Education professionals. The article discusses political perception, public relations, conflicting political interests, the political importance of program success, and provides recommendations for political survival in the university culture. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Mind-body dualism has likely influenced how many view human beings and their behavior—mind (i.e., thinking) is elevated over body (i.e., performing)—even in Physical Education Teacher Education. The problem is that such a perspective makes physical education content (i.e., dance, games, play, and sport) subsidiary to more “intellectual” or “academic” content. This article invites Physical Education Teacher Education faculty to consider how to effectively “send the message” to future physical educators that physical education content is valuable and respectable and in many ways epitomizes intelligent human behavior. Specifically, Physical Education Teacher Education faculty are invited to (a) challenge traditional definitions of intelligence and introduce alternative definitions, (b) participate regularly in their own playgrounds, (c) provide a sufficient dose of activity courses in their curricula, (d) teach activity courses, (e) establish a performance-oriented culture, and (f) administer performance and/or game play evaluations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]