February 19th – 25th marked the 2024 For the Love of Health and Physical Education Week. Brought to you by the SHAPE America Recruitment and Retention Task Force, we seek to showcase those who are championing for the future of the field. As part of these efforts, we have highlighted those who are engaging in higher education to impact the recruitment, training, and retention of high-quality Health and Physical Educators.
We sat down with Luis Sanchez- Martinez, a current physical education teacher and doctoral student at the University of New Mexico (UNM) and assistant professor, Dr. Victoria Shiver to discuss their ongoing works to pilot a partnership with a local Albuquerque high school to coordinate a PE and Health specific on-campus and ‘day-in-the-life-of” a UNM student.
For both Luis and Dr. Shiver, they discussed their own experiences realizing that being a physical education teacher was an option as a career path. With this in mind and stemming from his current work as a K-12 educator (Listen to the 2023 #CareerWhy fully interview with Luis), Luis began to notice that his students were unsure of what they want to do for their future, and unaware of what opportunities may be available to them. This led to him reaching out to Dr. Karen Gaudreault and Dr. Shiver on how to best put a recruiting event together. Creating a community partnership with Luis’ school.
Through this, they reached out to the school that Luis worked with, as well as the UNM admissions office, to begin putting a plan into action. Initial planning of this pilot recruiting event will have 25 high school students with an interest in physical education be able to see what a day in the life of a UNM student. Students will get the chance to speak with admissions counselors about means to enroll, and financial aid opportunities, and get a tour of campus. To further promote and provide insight to the Department of Health, Exercise and Sports Sciences, these high school students will get the opportunity to participate in Luis’ secondary models class to provide insight on quality physical education and provide interactions between current undergraduate PE majors and these high school students.
The overall goals for this pilot recruiting event are to, first and foremost, provide these high school students with the opportunity to see options available to them for higher education. As Dr. Shiver described, “We just want them to know what's available to them. So, making sure that their future is covered if they choose to enter into a college space, and they know how to do that top priority, whether or not we get them into our specific program.” Additionally, being able to measure successes or tweaks needed to be able to carry this event going forward and to be able to expand to other schools to continue to recruit a diverse and expanding population to teach PE. An overview of the recruitment event and planning itinerary is provided here for review.
For those in the higher education sector interested in putting on similar recruiting events, Dr. Shiver suggested the following:
If you have any idea at all, reach out to parties that may have any interest. Worst thing they can say, is no. … With us, for example, we had no idea where to start, but then, just reaching out to the recruitment office, everything fell together really easily. … just because you may not know, other people can help guide you in the right direction. So take a chance and you'll develop good partnerships along the way.
Written with Dr. Meghan Dennis, Ph.D, University of Alabama