Dickinson’s faculty is set to vote on the elimination of the physical education graduation requirement on Tuesday, March 6, according to Barry Tesman, chair of the All-College Committee on Academic Program and Standards (APSC) and professor of mathematics.

Tesman stated in an email that, “On the agenda, for tomorrow’s [March 6] faculty meeting, is a resolution, from APSC, to eliminate the college’s PE graduation requirement…The resolution will pass if it receives a majority of the faculty vote.”

The vote comes after Student Senate distributed a survey in November 2015, which “garnered approximately 1000 responses and provided the basis for the comprehensive review of the requirement, as well as recommendations to the All-College Committee on Academic Programs and Standards,” according to Chris Jones ’19, president of Student Senate. A Senate working group then compiled the results and “In March of 2017 Student Senate submitted a formal document consisting of a review and recommendations to APSC.”

APSC then examined the data and found that the current graduation requirement of four half-semester PE blocks is “highly inconsistent across the activities that fulfill the PE credit,” according to agenda of Tuesday’s faculty meeting. These inconsistencies include what counts for a single PE block as well as the assessment and evaluation mechanisms that are in place for these courses.

In the document, the committee further cited concerns regarding the fact that coaches, who are not usually hired to be PE instructors, are often the ones teaching these courses. The document states that the ability to teach a PE block is not currently a consideration during the hiring process for coaching staff.

The committee also highlighted scheduling issues, explaining that several academic courses are currently in conflict with PE courses, causing scheduling conflicts for students.