Letter Opposing Elimination of PE

Dear Chancellor May and Provost Croughan,

We were quite surprised to read in the Davis Enterprise about the proposed elimination of the Physical Education Program. There are three aspects to this that give pause.

First, many thousands of students participate in PE each year. One might have thought there would be a larger degree of engagement with the campus community concerning this decision and its consequences. Besides consulting with those who would be most affected, the students, there is also the fact that the Academic Senate has formal authority in decisions of this nature.

Second, the benefits of physical activity are well proven, for stress relief, overall health, and learning new skills. The mind-body is a complete system: disregarding the rest of the body inhibits memory, mood, and learning. Eliminating PE seems starkly at variance with one of the strategic goals of the recently announced “Healthy UC Davis” initiative: “Providing UC Davis community members with support, opportunity, information and tools to engage in healthy behaviors.”

There are many students who, for one reason or another, have grown up without the opportunity for much learning and participation in sports broadly defined. Elimination of PE unfairly singles out these, typically less wealthy, students who, for example, are not able to afford a membership and lessons at a golf club, but who can, in a UCD PE class, learn under the tutelage of a Cy Williams. PE courses offer all our students the opportunity to learn, at no cost, new skills as a beginner, and from talented and outstanding instructors.

Third, and finally, we need not remind you of our nation’s recent descent into fragmentation and division. Many majors on campus are profoundly segregated by race and by gender. PE classes offer our students a unique opportunity to make friends and interact across lines of race, religious belief, and sexual orientation. Sharing the experience of spotting a partner’s bench press, or giving an assist in a basketball game, reminds our students how arbitrary categories are irrelevant to the process of working together.

The Executive Board of
The Davis Faculty Association

7 Comments

  1. These classes taught me a LOT and provided me with essential information that I would not have gotten from other classes on our campus. PLEASE keep these classes for future generations and individuals.

  2. I would like to support this letter as a member of the UC Community for 21 yrs as the ATOD Intervention Services Coordinator I have gone into both PE 40- Drugs and Society and PE 44-Healthful Living for the past 10 yrs to discuss current trends in substance abuse and also bring in students in our collegiate recovery program Aggies 4 Recovery. These classes have been instrumental in discussing topics that many times don’t get discussed. It’s also is a place where UC Davis students can meet other students in recovery and ask questions that normally aren’t talked about. I’ve also had many students looking for an outlet to stay sober take a PE class. Through these classes I’ve also helped many students get sober and or quit smoking/vaping and stay in school. I very much am against this program being taken away as for some this is the only way they are able to get the exercise they so very much need and deserve!
    Stephanie Lake, M.Ed. LAADC. Alcohol, Tobacco, and Other Drug Intervention Services Coordinator
    Student Health and Counseling Center

  3. PE classes are essential! I learned and enjoyed a lot from UC Davis PE classes, I took more than five classes and loved every class. Students need PE classes besides regular academic classes. It helps physically and mentally for them.

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