In early 2020, Hillsdale College altered the curriculum for Physical Wellness Dynamics, inverting the order of topics to focus on the brain first, then the body. These changes do not achieve the college’s goal for the course, leaving students and teachers alike frustrated with a changed curriculum that offers little improvement.
In this class, coaches often rely on PowerPoint presentations assembled by other instructors, trust that students are completing their assigned exercises outside of class, and attempt to discuss spiritual health without touching on interdenominational conflicts. Students endure a two-credit class with a workload that surpasses many three-credit classes, and sit in class to hear lectures on how they shouldn’t be sitting so often. The distinguishing feature of the class is busywork; assignments include a week of counting calories and a scavenger hunt across campus.
Since academics often exercise their minds alone, a class that encourages students to consciously prioritize physical activity and healthy eating is a reasonable component of a balanced liberal arts curriculum. Currently, however, Physical Wellness is just one more mandatory class. Even students who are passionate about health and exercise find it a chore. Some — myself included — take it over a summer session to simply get it out of the way and enroll in more major-relevant courses during the academic year.
Although this is where we currently find Physical Wellness, we do not have to let the class stagnate there permanently. A few additional changes could achieve the administration’s goal for the class more effectively, and significantly improve the class for both students and instructors. Hillsdale should not only continue to adapt the course, but also return to the old curriculum for its “lab” component in order to actually integrate physical activity into students’ lives.
To begin, the class should be broken up over two semesters. It currently counts for two credits — one for lectures and one for “labs.” Separating those components would enable two valuable curricular shifts.
First, the separation would allow a more focused lecture portion during the first semester of freshman year. A system of once-weekly lectures, like a Collegiate Scholars Program one-credit, would fit well into freshmen schedules without overwhelming their homework loads. Hearing these lectures during the first semester at Hillsdale would encourage freshmen to integrate lessons on health before they learned them the hard way. After all, a senior finishing the last part of the core will not benefit from a discussion of sleep cycles the way that a freshman — about to learn the hard way that he can’t pull all-nighters every day for a week — would.
Once-weekly lectures could integrate a guest speaker system that would bring in the best-qualified members of Hillsdale’s faculty. In its most recent iteration, the class features a “wellness wheel” that attempts to describe physical, spiritual, and mental wellness in PowerPoint slides. Although the college’s coaches have a background in physical health and exercise, Physical Wellness currently attempts to discuss more. Why not let the coaches discuss exercise, then bring in Father Adam Rick, the college’s chaplain, to discuss how faith impacts overall well-being? Similarly, why not have Brock Lutz, the director of Health Services, speak on mental health and the resources available to students on campus? If Physical Wellness was composed of once-weekly lectures that featured guest speakers, the topics would be more clearly applicable to students’ lives and the class would point students towards those with valuable answers to their questions.
Second, with the lecture and lab portions of Physical Wellness separated, students could fulfill their lab credit with an enjoyable course that remains part of their life after they complete the class. The option to begin a particular sport, dance style, martial arts system, or other interesting form of exercise could encourage students to stick with that system long after they’ve fulfilled their Physical Wellness credit. After all, running mandatory laps around Biermann for one semester can only do so much for students’ long-term health. By contrast, participation in the sort of physical activity that challenges and inspires students will promote lasting wellness.
For example, if a student took a yoga class during her freshman year to complete her second Physical Wellness credit, her increased energy and improved health (to say nothing of her newfound ability to reduce the back pain from long afternoons hunched over a study table in Purgatory) might encourage her to enroll in the class for later semesters at Hillsdale, or to continue to practice yoga in her free time. Students who begin weight training, English riding, or swim fitness might all have similar stories.
Physical Wellness Dynamics attempts to teach students the importance of prioritizing their health. By allowing students to fulfill this credit with an activity they want to continue, students are more likely to continue devoting time to their health at Hillsdale, actually achieving the class’s goal. Furthermore, students who habituate themselves to physical activity in college are more likely to continue exercising in adulthood.
By separating the class into two credits completed in different semesters, Hillsdale could refine the lecture portion to both students’ and instructors’ advantages, and could broaden the options for fulfilling the lab portion to encourage students to integrate physical activity more fully into their lives. These changes would improve the class’s ability to achieve the worthy goal it has set for students’ lives — encouraging students to prioritize their health during and after their four years on campus.
Ceanna Hayes is a junior George Washington Fellow studying politics.
