The Wellness Center provides group exercise classes but has had to cut its hours and the number of classes. Gia Cognata / MOUNTAINEER
With state funding for Mt. SAC decreasing, the physical education and kinesiology department is taking a huge loss in class offerings and hours of operation, affecting students and staff.
“We cannot serve students the way we used to,” said Virginia Burley, vice president of instruction.
Burley is one of the final voices in what classes make the schedule released each year. “This is going to be a change for us and the students,” Burley said.
Mt. SAC has had total funding cut by $8 million, with a prospective $1.6 million in additional cuts by January 2012. With funding limited, the focus of the school is on associate degree and transfer-related courses. There are seven departments that are prime targets for cuts as they offer less associate and transfer related courses.
According to Burley, of the seven sections commonly targeted for cuts, P.E and kinesiology tops the list with 81 sections cut this year, a total loss of 10 percent of the P.E classes offered. “I think it is really unfortunate,” said K.C Kranz, health and fitness supervisor at the Wellness Center on campus.
The Wellness Center serves as both a classroom and community fitness education center. The Wellness Center is supposed to operate seven days a week, but during the summer and winter sessions, the center is closed Friday through Sunday because of funding cuts. The operation hours for the center have been reduced, making the facility less accessible to students who often find the center packed full during peak hours. Entry fitness courses like fitness walking have been cut entirely.
According to Kranz, students with health problems who may not be comfortable taking a more strenuous fitness course are not going to get the direction they need to possibly influence fitness for the rest of their lives.
“I think we have a very important role here as instructors for the community and instructors for the students,” Kranz said. “If they could see the outcome of meeting with those students and making changes, I think they would think differently.”
Mike Goff, professor, coach, and department chair for the P.E and kinesiology department, said that cuts hurt students.
“Any extracurricular program is an easy target,” he said.
In fall 2007, the P.E department offered 209 sections; in fall 2011, it offered 151. According to Goff, the classes that are still available have suffered a 40 percent cut in operation hours, which means less practice time for team sports and less hours to work for faculty. The winter course offerings have been hit even harder by the cuts. In winter 2008, the P.E classes totaled 71 sections; in winter 2012, Mt. SAC will offer 13. In addition to the budget for P.E being cut, the state academic senate is proposing that repeatability be eliminated for P.E courses. Goff said that many students who enroll in P.E courses are interested in skill development, and may not have the opportunity to fully develop their skills in one semester. The limit on repeatability would prevent students from re-taking the classes to better their physical ability. For some fire and police students, it may limit their ability to make it into a physically demanding academy program. “It hurts students more than anything because it’s not well thought out, they’re not mentioning skill development,” Goff said.
According to Burley, there are no more cuts projected for the next school year, but she cautioned that the state has had a difficult time agreeing on a set budget for education.
“We want to offer the most we can,” Burley said.
Guff added that the school was anticipating an increased budget from the state, but it has yet to happen.
“There is a much bigger picture,” Goff said. “We’ve taken our cuts, but it’s a tragedy what has happened to education.”
Goff added, “I don’t think anything’s going to happen; the Democrats and Republicans need to do what’s best for the country and not what’s best for their party.”
- Daniel Hiemstra
Staff Writer
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