Renewing the Core Curriculum

Abstract

The core curriculum accompanied the development of the academic discipline with multiple names such as Kinesiology, Exercise and Sport Science, and Health and Human Performance. It provides commonalties for undergraduate majors. It is timely to renew this curriculum. Renewal involves strategic reappraisals. It may stimulate change or reaffirm the status quo. Renewal of the core curriculum might include a retrospective analysis of conflicts and differences accompanying the academic discipline's development. These conflicts and differences remain salient today. They invite unified frameworks in substitution for the oft-divisive concepts of discipline and profession. The core curriculum can be linked to faculty identities, interests, and careers. Consequently, the preparation, career aspirations, and knowledge orientations of faculty merit consideration in the renewal process. Other renewal priorities include the curriculum's theory of learning as well as research on its outcomes and impacts.