Student Body Weighs In on P.E. Credits
995 students responded to Student Senate’s survey about changing the college’s 2-credit P.E. requirement, representing a 42 percent response rate from the student body. The survey, which Senate executives crafted with the help of Sarah Niebler, assistant professor of Political Science and Student Senate survey advisor, was open for five days from Wednesday, Nov. 11 through Sunday, Nov. 16. Senate President Ian Hower ’16 commented on the data on Monday, Nov. 17:
“We are extremely pleased with the response rate. It shows just how passionate the students are about this issue. We thought it was very interesting that one of the main complaints about the P.E. requirement is that meeting the requirement often conflicted with academic schedules. We were also surprised to see how many students exercise without credit and participate in a sport (varsity or club) 11+ hours a week while getting little to no credit for their time.
As to what we plan on doing with the data, we are meeting with Associate Provost Brenda Bretz later this week to discuss next steps, and are bringing the data to the Academic Programming and Standards Committee (APSC), which will consider policy changes. After we aggregate the data and write a proposal to APSC, it will be brought before the entire faculty for a vote. If the policy changes pass, then the P.E. requirement will be changed.”
