Kerry Mummery

Post #29: October 30, 2011

2011-10-30T22:34:00.000-07:00

Dean’s Blog – FACULTY OF PHYSICAL EDUCATION AND RECREATION

Post #29: October 30, 2011

Thanks to Gord Walker and Dave Mitsui for asking “where’s the blog?” I signed off in May saying I would be back in the fall, and all the leaves have fallen before the blog’s return. I had been wondering if anyone had missed it, so thanks to both Gord and Dave for noticing. I promised them I would get back on it!

Personal highlights for the summer included a trip back to Australia to visit family and friends (and do a little open water swimming); a visit to Stirling University in Inverness, Scotland and a tour of the ‘whiskey trail’; a tour of the Okanagan wine region (stunningly great wine); numerous trips to our mountain parks, and a climb of Mt. Athabasca (3,491m) with my good friend and colleague Dr. John Spence and our newest assistant professor, Dr. Zac Robinson (pictured on the summit above).

The climb of Mt. Athabasca was an all-time highlight. It was fantastic to share Zac’s passion for the mountains. Starting at 2:30 am, we spent almost 13 hours on the mountain (7 ½ hours up, a little over 5 hours down), which left me feeling like what I have seen people at the end of iron-man triathlons looking like. A tough, yet satisfying day spent experiencing the beauty and ruggedness of the Canadian Rockies gave me a great appreciation of what drives our mountain studies group. This group, a number of whom are from our faculty, have formed the Canadian Mountain Studies Initiative (CMSI) as a fledgling effort towards the establishment of a formal institute at some point down the road.

I am just back from attending four key conferences in the past three weeks. Just prior to my departure for this trip, I was pleased to host Dr. David Martin, senior sport physiologist from the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra Australia. David gave a great presentation about his, and the AIS’s role in the development of Australian professional cyclist, and winner of the 2010 Tour de France, Cadel Evans. David showed the passion and excitement of sharing in the trials and tribulations of elite athletes. Although a sport physiologist by training, David’s presentation displayed the multi-dimensional nature of elite sport performance. I was pleased to host David and his wife Mary Kay at a dinner at Fort Edmonton Park with a group of key sport people in the city and the province as we work towards building our capacity in sport science, and place the Faculty as a key element of athletic development regionally, provincially and nationally.

Following David’s visit I had the chance to attend the Canadian Society for Psychomotor Learning and Sport Psychology (SCAPPS) conference in Winnipeg. I haven’t been to SCAPPS - in almost 20 years, and I was very pleased to see the strong UofA contingent at the conference. We were well represented by both faculty and graduate students who demonstrated the Faculty’s ongoing strength in this area. Special congratulations to Dr. Nick Holt for his work as president of SCAPPS. Nick continues the tradition of leadership shown by our Faculty, which includes recent past-presidencies by Faculty members, John Spence, Brian Maraj and Wendy Rodgers.

From Winnipeg I flew to Perth, Western Australia to attend the Asics Conference of Science and Medicine in Sport (ACSMS) hosted by Sports Medicine Australia (SMA). This gave me the opportunity to catch up with members of my old research team and former colleagues from SMA. A great, but brief trip included meetings with the University of Western Australia (UWA) about the possibility of faculty and student exchanges. Here is the link to a video that the Tim Ackland, from the School of Sport Science, Exercise and Health, shared with me. It was made by students from UBC who did an exchange at UWA and does a great job of selling the benefits of international experiences from a student perspective: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsIXXSdBMk8

From Perth I headed to the National Recreation Summit followed by the Alberta Recreation and Parks Association (ARPA) conference, held back-to-back at Chateau Lake Louise. The Province and the Faculty are major contributors to the recreation agenda in the country and the National Recreation Summit was the first of its type and I was pleased to be the only Dean invited to this invitation-only summit. Special thanks go to Dr. Tom Hinch and Doug Brimacombe for their work with the summit organizing committee and for including a strong student contingent at the summit, many of whom were from our faculty. The ARPA conference followed closely on the heels of the summit and celebrated the 60^th year of ARPA. Discussions are underway for next year, which will be the 50^th anniversary of our bachelors degree in recreation – Canada’s longest running recreation degree. Given the extremely strong tie between our faculty and the recreation profession in the province, I am confident that next year’s 50^th will be an anniversary to remember.

The coming week features the first Golden Bear and Panda regular season games in the new competition gym at the Saville Community Sports Centre. The men’s and women’s volleyball teams take on Thomson Rivers on Friday and Saturday night in our amazing new facility. I encourage everyone to attend and cheer the teams to victory in these matches.

Cheers,

Kerry

Post #28: April 24th, 2011

2011-04-24T20:59:00.001-07:00

Dean’s Blog – FACULTY OF PHYSICAL EDUCATION AND RECREATION

Post #28: April 24^th, 2011

It’s Sunday night in Brandon Manitoba and the ‘Hawks have just scored to send the series to a seventh game in Vancouver. I watched the game with mixed feelings. I like the ‘original six’ team, but feel compelled to cheer for the Canadian team. Unfortunately that team is Vancouver and not the Oilers, so we will wait and see how the seventh game transpires. As a person with a PhD in sport psychology, I think the most interesting bit will be the build up to the game and the amount of naïve psychology that will transpire in trying to determine who has the momentum (obviously Chicago) and what the effects of not starting Roberto Luongo will have on his psyche entering the final game. The drama and the hype certainly add to the theatre of sport - the ultimate in reality TV.

I drove to Brandon this weekend to visit my Dad, and head home tomorrow. Yesterday we went and hit a few golf balls at the driving range that just opened. My Dad is an avid golfer while I just need some practice… a lot of practice! When we were at the range, the attendant asked if we were from Brandon. I said, “he is”… pointing to my Dad, “but I’m not”. “You're from Alberta?” was the response. “Yes, how did you guess?”… he pointed to my hat. A simple white baseball hat with the GUBA logo on it (Great University Bear of Alberta, for you non-UofA readers), and nothing else… no words, or print, and yet he knew where I was from. This is the power of one of our major brands… GUBA. I was pleased the attendant picked up on our mascot. Branding is an important point of differentiation. In this case, our brand was identifiable.

Points of differentiation are important to us as a Faculty. We are trying to attract the best and brightest students and staff and we need to carefully think about, develop and promote the attributes and offerings that differentiate us from our domestic and international counterparts. For me these could be our centres and institutes. Aggregations of strengths in terms of research, teaching and service, centres and institutes should become identifiable areas that the Faculty works on, supports and builds around. The other point of differentiation should be the integrated nature of the Faculty, and the ability for us to use the living labs of athletics and campus recreation to give great experiential learning opportunities for our undergraduate and graduate students, and provide the opportunity for applied research in the areas of sport and recreation. The recent Canadian Sport for Life (CS4L) presentation by Drs. Reade, Denison and Harber was great food for thought in terms of what the Faculty could do and be in terms of being a world-leader in the area of long term athlete development.

Staying with the concept of differentiation for a moment (or at least another paragraph), Stewart Petersen, Associate Dean Graduate Programs, and I met last week with the head of Graduate Studies to talk about further differentiating our Masters in coaching studies. Currently we offer a Masters of Arts (MA) in coaching which is proving to be very successful. To better differentiate our graduates, and our program, we are working with the Faculty of Graduate Studies to change the degree to a Master of Coaching (Stew’s preferred title) or a Master of Sports Coaching (my preference). Either way, our students would finish with an MC an MSpC or something similar that would clearly demonstrate their graduate degree. It would also be the first specific Masters of Coaching in Canada, as our current competitors offer an MA or an MEd in the area. Paperwork is underway…

My first academic year as Dean is wrapping up. Exams are well underway as is the preparation for the upcoming Faculty retreat. I am actually a terrible retreat person. Too many times they have seemed to me to be a waste of time and an exercise in refining a vision and a mission to such a generic point that I couldn’t for the life of me pick the difference between the mission of the unit we were working on, and many different operational units of almost any type. So my challenge is clear. Don’t waste people’s time, AND come up with something – a few things, but likely not many things – that will be distinctive and will assist us in consolidating our position as the leading Faculty of Physical Education and Recreation in Canada. We will see how I do!

Cheers

Kerry

Post #27: April 10, 2011

2011-04-10T22:36:00.001-07:00

Dean’s Blog – FACULTY OF PHYSICAL EDUCATION AND RECREATION

Post #27: April 10, 2011

This past week started on a Sunday night with the second Play Around the World (PAW) fundraising dinner. It looks like the program is outgrowing the space at the Dutch Canadian Club, as there was a great turnout for the evening, which included a brilliant dinner from the King and I, and a silent auction. I was fortunate to “win” a set of headphones, in the auction but came up short on a pair of Oiler tickets for the last home game of the season. PAW is a great example of the Faculty’s work to ‘internationalize’ our students – sending students to Thailand and Cambodia as part of their coursework. The University is encouraging faculties to give at least 25 percent of all undergraduate students an international experience during their degree, and we are looking at ways to gain this type of experience for more of our students.

I was pleased to be able to sign off on the receipt of a $2 million dollar donation from Bruce Saville last week to support the completion the GO Centre. This is the last piece of the funding puzzle, which will see the GO Centre and the Saville Centre be known as one complex, called the Saville Community Sports Centre. As we look forward to completion of the Go Centre, the challenge will be to ensure that the facility contributes to the mission and mandate of the Faculty as well as benefit the community. Increased integration of the South Campus within the Faculty will benefit what we do as well as raise the level of sport performance in the city in the sports housed at South Campus.

On Thursday I had the opportunity to meet with our incoming Assistant Professor Zac Robinson and Dr. Stephen Slemon from Arts to discuss the formation of an institute of mountain studies that we could host in the Faculty. There is a critical mass of mountain researchers across the university, and a good cross section of these are housed within our Faculty. The development of an Institute would consolidate the work and give an identifiable entity to attract undergraduate and graduate students, as well as future staff to Alberta. I have a meeting this coming week with our Faculty members who would identify with an institute of this type to see what the next steps are in moving this project forward. I think this project has some real potential.

As the year winds down, I have been fortunate to be involved in a number of Athletics’ functions to acknowledge the success of our student athletes. I had the pleasure of having lunch at the Faculty Club with Chancellor Linda Hughes, and the winners of this year’s President’s Awards for Athletics. The Chancellor was impressed with the athlete’s who represented their sports and our University. The winners truly embody the concept of student athletes. Friday saw the annual Green and Gold award night, with the ‘after party’ for the coaching and support staffs are my house. It was a great night, and I wish all the best in terms of recruiting and preparation for our coaches and teams in preparation for the 2011-2012 season.

Associate Dean (Research) John Spence and I hosted a breakfast Friday morning for the assistant professors of the Faculty. It was an enjoyable opportunity to meet and discuss the activities of the Faculty, and field questions about the direction we are taking. The assistant professor breakfast follows on from the dinner with the ‘professoriate’. Next step will be lunch with the associate professors…

Tomorrow is the 30^th wedding anniversary for Chris and I. Two apartments, seven houses, five cities, two continents and two great daughters - it has been an amazing 30 years. I have been fortunate to have a wonderful partner to travel with over all these years. I might be a little late coming in on Tuesday...

Cheers,

Kerry

Post #26: March 27th, 2011

2011-03-27T18:37:00.000-07:00

Dean’s Blog – FACULTY OF PHYSICAL EDUCATION AND RECREATION

Post #26: March 27^th, 2011

It’s Sunday night in Fredericton and I’ve just finished watching the CIS men’s hockey final between MacGill and the University of New Brunswick. Not quite the teams I had hoped to be watching, but a great hockey game none-the-less. The quality of hockey in the CIS is very good - a fast-paced skilled game, played by true student athletes. Congratulations to the UNB Reds for winning the University Cup and best wishes to a young Golden Bears team for next year.

The vast majority of men’s CIS hockey teams are made up of former major junior players who are completing their university education with the assistance of scholarships provided by the leagues that they played in. The work of the Western Hockey League and other junior hockey leagues makes me think that the Canadian Olympic Committee might develop a similar system for athletes pursuing their Olympic dream. Perhaps our ‘carded’ athletes could receive scholarship support if they take time off studies in preparation for international competition.

The benefits of a university education should be self-evident, but often can be lost to those whose interests focus them elsewhere. Alberta is a resource-rich province, but provincial success will be built on a knowledge economy and a university degree certainly confers many benefits to the graduate. I am very pleased to hear the successful stories of many of our student athletes, who are able to paly their sport at a high level and still pursue their goals in higher education. I can think back 30-40 years to a number of promising junior hockey players I knew who forsook education to pursue their professional dreams, ending up with few options when the professional dream died.

Prior to heading to Fredericton, I met with the facilitator for the upcoming Faculty Retreat. Retreats and planning days are difficult challenges. It is important to include the faculty in planning, but participants need to feel like the process is valuable. I have been doing retreats and planning days of one sort or other since the late 70’s and I am guilty of thinking many I took part in were a waste of time. I once mistakenly thought I could run my own planning day – a mistake I will not repeat! The goal of the planning day(s) will be to (briefly) revisit the mission and vision of the Faculty and develop information and input into a 5-year plan. The plan, bracketed by 2-year and 10-year plans that will provide feedback on our progress and a longer-term vision of where we wish to be, will be formalized over the summer and presented for ratification to Faculty Council in the fall. The facilitator has ‘guaranteed’ that the retreat will get us there. I hope he is a man of his word!

Next week there is a Faculty Executive meeting to ratify minor changes in the certificate in Aboriginal Sport and Recreation. This will be an important step towards a joint degree in the area in cooperation with the Faculty of Native Studies. All things look to be in place for our first embedded undergraduate certificate, which should be on offer this fall.

I am also meeting for a Q&A with the graduate students next week. As outlined in Faculty assembly, we have negotiated increased graduate student funding with central administration. This increased funding will help us grow the graduate program – both Masters and PhD – in line with the recommendations made by the external unit review team to the recent Faculty Review. I am sure the growth of the graduate program may lead to some of the Q’s in the upcoming Q&A session.

Tomorrow night is Jackson Browne night at the Jubilee Auditorium. I have been a Jackson fan for over 30 years, and look forward to seeing him live in concert. I just hope I won’t be ‘running on empty’ after the early morning flight back from the Maritimes.

Cheers

Kerry

Post #25: March 20, 2011

2011-03-20T22:52:00.001-07:00

Dean’s Blog – FACULTY OF PHYSICAL EDUCATION AND RECREATION

Post #25: March 20, 2011

Snake oil salesmen live! OK, this is a rather different start to my blog, but this was top of mind after I finished reading the newspaper today. One of the inserts, from a national department store that shall remain unnamed, was for beauty products. Now I normally don’t read the beauty product advertising inserts, but this one caught my eye. A ‘snake serum pen’ that “lifts, rejuvenates and hydrates”… 6ml for $95…available in April of this year!

We still have our work cut out for us. People will apparently pay good money - a lot of good money - for products like this but tend not to value the benefits of physical activity and exercise. Recently I attended a presentation of the recent Alberta Physical Activity Survey to representatives of Alberta Sport, Recreation, Parks and Wildlife Association in their downtown office in Edmonton. Results of the 2011 survey shows that only slightly more than half of the adult population do enough physical activity for health benefits. More distressing is that the number of Albertans doing sufficient physical activity has been in continual decline over the last six years. Maybe we need a glossy insert in the weekend paper to sell the benefits of activity… 6 milliliters at a time!

Our Faculty is a national and international leader in the area of physical activity and health. Our researchers measure and report population levels of physical activity, investigate the effects of policy, environment and messaging on individual and group behaviors and study the effects of exercise and physical activity in the prevention and treatment of numerous chronic diseases. We are working on the establishment of the Alberta Institute of Physical Activity and Health (AIPAH) to leverage the work done within the Faculty and ensure an ongoing legacy of work in the area from many years to come. The Institute will be housed in the upcoming Faculty expansion, which will expand the footprint of the Faculty on the main campus with the development of the Physical Activity and Wellness (PAW) Centre and the anticipated move into University Hall.

Even though we are developing a reputation in the area of physical activity and exercise, it is important for the Faculty not to loose its foothold in the sport sciences. Sport science is our unique niche. As other faculties of physical education or kinesiology turn their focus to physical activity and health they are leaving a vacuum of opportunity in sport and sport science. We are fortunate to have a faculty that is large enough and diverse enough to cover both areas. We will seek to strengthen both areas concurrently.

This coming week I am off to Fredericton to cheer on the Golden Bears hockey team. The Bears are ranked third in the finals and meet the loser of the Thursday game between the McGill Redmen and St. Francis Xavier X-men on Friday. A strong series of games will hopefully add to the 2011 national championship won by the women’s wrestling team, a win that kept intact a 17-year national championship-winning streak by at least one UofA varsity sport team! An impressive record we will look to add to this weekend, and in coming years.

In the interim, we are working on budgets. The 2011-12 budget will remain challenging, but I am pleased to see signs of economic recovery, which should help add to the capacity of the Faculty in future years. One of the major elements of budgetary activity is enrolment management. With all programs – undergraduate and graduate – under demand, we are looking to reduce the undergraduate enrolment slightly with a coinciding growth in graduate student placement. The alterations will be slight, but perhaps noticeable as we continue to attract graduate students from across Canada and internationally to work with professors in all areas of study and research within the Faculty.

Days are getting noticeably longer, and maybe even a little warmer. My walks in the Whitemud Creek ravine this weekend were greeted with many birdsongs that have been missing for a few months now. I think spring might be on its way!

Cheers,

Kerry

Post #24: March 6, 2011

2011-03-06T21:21:00.000-08:00

Dean’s Blog – FACULTY OF PHYSICAL EDUCATION AND RECREATION

Post #24: March 6th, 2011

A cold Sunday night was spent with warm company at the King & I Restaurant in support of this year’s Play-Around-the-World (PAW) program. PAW has been sending teams of students to provide play and recreation opportunities with not for profit organizations in Thailand and, more recently Cambodia, since 2001. This year, PAW will be sending 3 teams of students to Chiang Mai and Pattaya in Thailand and to Phnom Penh in Cambodia and tonight’s dinner was one of a number of fund raising events to support the students’ overseas experience. To me travel is one of the greatest learning experiences one can have. I am sure that our students will learn a lot, and give a lot during their time in South East Asia this coming summer.

I had the chance to go to Ottawa mid-week, where I spent the morning with Alex Baumann, CEO of the Own-the-Podium (OTP) program. OTP was created to bring key parties in Canadian sport together with the goal of achieving excellence at the Summer and Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games. As one of the leading CIS programs in Canada, the Faculty is one of the key parties, and it was great to spend the morning with Alex, and Anne Merklinger, Director of Summer Sports for OTP. This was an initial meet-and-greet meeting, with no particular agenda, but I see a big role for the Faculty in the Canadian sport system, and look forward to working closely with the OTP program over the next few years to the mutually benefit all parties.

The afternoon in Ottawa was spent on the University of Ottawa Campus meeting at the Canadian Interuniversity Sport offices meeting with the CEO Marg McGregor. CIS was a key partner with the Faculty in the recent, but unsuccessful bid to host the 2015 FISU games and we obviously work closely with the CIS when it comes to the pursuit of national championships. I am interested in how future championships are structured and what future sports may gain national championship status. Canadian Universities, with their sport, athlete and coaching capacities should play a central role with CIS and OTP to improve sport performance and development in Canada.

The advisory committee for the hiring of a new professor of physical activity and health also met last week to prepare the job description and advertisement for the position. It is a rare opportunity when we get to hire at the level of full professor, and this position will further solidify the Faculty’s leading position in the realm of physical activity.

That's it for this week. The days are getting longer, and hopefully at some point just a little bit warmer. Let’s hope March leaves like a lamb.

Cheers,

Kerry

Post #23: February 27th, 2011

2011-02-27T21:46:00.000-08:00

Dean’s Blog – FACULTY OF PHYSICAL EDUCATION AND RECREATION

Post #23: February 27^th, 2011

Thanks to Family Day, the past week was a shortened one, and one with few students on campus due to Reading Week. The campus was quiet, but the job remained busy. I had the chance to tour the GO Centre on our South Campus on Wednesday. The work is accelerating, and the more that gets competed, the larger and more impressive the Centre becomes. The hardwood floor is currently being laid – all 135,000 square feet of it produces a virtual ocean of hardwood. Apparently the sprung floor of the volleyball and basketball courts will add an inch to an inch and a half of vertical jump to those who play there – a feature I could have used about 35 years ago! The playoffs in the Main Gym this past weekend were the last varsity events in the gym. We all look forward to the grand opening of the new facility later this year.

Last week was our Faculty’s turn to present to the Senate. I enjoyed the chance to talk about the successes of the faculty, and entertained questions for about twenty minutes after my presentation. The question period was interesting and positive. One of the questions asked how the University could mimic the success of our sporting teams in the academic domain. A great question. After a quick thought, I said we should build on tradition, set high goals, and attract and retain great people. I always have felt sport to be a great microcosm of the broader world, where much can be learned and applied to that wider context.

Friday saw a meeting with senior management to discuss future enrolment targets and enrolment management. The recent unit review suggested that we maintain our undergraduate enrolments, and grow our graduate enrolments. After much discussion it looks like we will reduce our undergraduate enrolment slightly, and grow our graduate student numbers. As we grow our graduate student numbers, we will have to work to attract sufficient funding to support this growth. We have a meeting next week with the University Development Office, and grad student support will be on the agenda.

The weekend was a busy one for our Athletics programs. Special congratulations go to Owen Dawkins and the Women’s Wrestling Team for winning their first ever CIS team championships! Owen capped off a great weekend in Thunder Bay by being awarded Canadian coach of the year for women’s wrestling. Truly great results in the 100^th year of wrestling at the UofA. The next few weeks see more of our teams at national championships. Best wishes to all.

I am off to Ottawa next week to meet with Alex Baumann who is the head of the “Own the Podium’ program. Alex is Canada’s greatest ever swimmer, and returned to Canada last year from Australia a number of years as the head of the Queensland Academy of Sport. I look forward to meeting Alex to discuss how the University of Alberta can play a key role in the Own the Podium program and Canada’s future international sporting success. I will let you know how the meeting goes.

Cheers,

Kerry

Post #22: February 21st, 2011

2011-02-21T22:46:00.001-08:00

Dean’s Blog – FACULTY OF PHYSICAL EDUCATION AND RECREATION

Post #22: February 21^st, 2011

“Bring back the Blog”… maybe not the words on everyone’s lips, but I have actually had a number of people say that they followed the blog, and found that it gave them information that they were not getting elsewhere. So, after much thought, and about three months off, the blog is back.

Of course there has been a lot happen in the past three months, so it is difficult to pick out the main items to fire up the blog with, but I did narrow it down to a few things.

I was very pleased to make my first ‘hire’ as the Dean here at UofA, when I inked a contract with Dr. Zac Robinson in early January (see photo). I look forward to Zac starting in July as an Assistant Professor in the Recreation program. Zac is an experienced mountaineer who brings his passion for the mountains to his teaching and study. There are great possibilities for future development in the area of mountain studies. It seems like a natural fit for the Rocky Mountains to feature heavily in research and study at the University of Alberta and I am confident that Zac will be a central figure in raising the profile of the Faculty in this area.

The second ‘big hire’ this year was the new Athletic Director. The history of the Golden Bears and Pandas Athletic program is long and storied, and the search for a new ‘AD’ attracted more than 80 applications from across Canada and the United States. After due consideration I was excited to sign Dr. Ian Reade to an initial four year term as the lead agent of the Golden Bears and Pandas programs. Ian brings a unique blend of management and academic experience to the position. It will be an exciting four years as we look to cement Alberta’s leadership in university sport and develop what we have termed the ‘Alberta Model’ of sport development and sport performance. Simply put, the Alberta Model seeks to establish the University of Alberta sport program as a key cog in the wheel of sport performance in Canada. This will be a combination of great coaching, great facilities and a long-term athlete development model supported by sport science and sport science research, teaching and service. Done correctly, I believe that we will become even more of a magnet program - attracting top athletes, coaches, sport scientists, undergraduate and graduate students and academics to the Faculty. Should be fun!

Since my last blog, there has also been substantial work done in the development of the new Physical Activity and Wellness (PAW) centre. The draft plans have been completed, and the final agreement with the student unions is very close to being signed. It now also looks like the Faculty will be in a position to occupy all, or at least part of, University Hall once the senior executive moves to its new offices in the current Pharmacy/Dentistry building. Ideally our occupancy will happen in conjunction with the completion of the PAW centre, giving the Faculty a truly impressive footprint on campus. In preparation for this, discussions are underway with faculty and staff to maximize the opportunity for new space and alignments of offices and laboratory space.

I wouldn’t want to sign off the first blog back without making note of the results from the recent external Faculty Unit Review. The external review team noted that we were “the leading faculty of physical education and recreation in the country” – a nice place to be – and gave numerous suggestions as to how to move from “very good to great”. These are great aspiration and, I think, very attainable. It is not uncommon for people, groups or organizations to talk about pursuing excellence, but few are truly positioned to achieve greatness. This Faculty is in that position. The first step in becoming a ‘great’ Faculty is to determine how such excellence is to be measured. To get a handle on this, I have struck a Dean’s task force on the metrics of excellence. Professors Wendy Rodgers, Gordon Walker and Jim Denison have accepted my offer, and will present a recommended set of measures for debate at the upcoming Faculty retreat in May. The task force will seek input from Faculty on the metrics that will help us know when we become ‘great’. I look forward to the process.

So the ‘Blog is Back’. I will do a more-or-less regular posting from now until the end of April with all good intentions of firing it up again in September. Please stay tuned.

Cheers,

Kerry

Post #21: Days 98 - 100 (November 22nd – 24th, 2010)

2010-11-24T22:25:00.000-08:00

Dean’s Blog – First 100 Days

Post #21: Days 98 - 100 (November 22^nd – 24^th, 2010)

Day 100 was spent with the Faculty Evaluation Committee - funny how the count worked out. FEC is a big one. In Australia we had no merit increases, instead we had more promotional levels – 4 vs. 2. Within the levels we had steps, which were automatic unless action was taken to stop the progression. Having presided over a number of promotion sessions in Australia, I was very interested to take part in FEC here. Certainly there are parts of FEC that I like- it is an annual peer review of the scholarly merit of one’s work, and on that allows us to guide the future of the faculty in terms of work attribution. Of course there are parts of the process that I am less enamored with – there is much angst around the FEC allocations. Certainly this in one method, but cannot be the only method to manage our most valuable resource, our people.

So that is the end of the first 100 Days. I feel much more at home after 100 days than I ever have in any other new job, which is a function of having been returned to a Faculty and a city that I have lived in before. Still, it is not like me to get comfortable, and I see tremendous opportunity for the faculty, with challenges that will certainly keep me from getting too comfortable too early. Personally, I like the challenge of not being too comfortable.

I received the news that Edmonton’s bid for Expo 2017 would not be supported by the Federal government early Tuesday morning when I pulled my newspaper out of the mailbox at what must have been -30 below. The lack of Federal funding pretty much ends Edmonton’s dream for the 2017 World’s Fait, but also slows the South Campus plan, which our Faculty featured heavily in. Without Expo 2017 funding, the development of Faculty buildings – which preliminarily featured 3 hockey rinks, a field house, a sport science building and related administrative buildings. The plan will likely remain – hopefully with our Faculty input featuring heavily – but the timelines are likely now much longer that would have been the case with a successful bid. Still we push on with PAW Centre and other critical development that is on the books.

So what are my impressions of my first 100 Days? Well it is certainly a busy job – something I will have to get a handle on. My perfect world is productive and not busy, which isn’t possible in this position, I just hope that I can control the business and be productive, productive in driving the Faculty forward in terms of leadership in our area. I have inherited a very, very good Faculty and hope to engage its members in discussions that will reaffirm our international leadership position. I think those steps have already started and it is a journey I invite all members to collectively engage in the process. Personally I am really excited about the opportunities and potential we all share.

The 100 Days was my exit strategy blog-wise - a definitive end to my beginning. I have been able to track some of the statistics of the blog postings and I know that I have had over 3500 blog views, almost all of them from Canada but some as far away as Russia, Brazil and Australia. I value the opportunity to communicate with the Faculty and would like to know if the blog should go on in some form. So if you have read this far, and have an opinion on whether I should continue it (or should have axed it weeks ago), please send me an email at kerry.mummery@ualberta.ca I would love to hear from you, no matter who you are or where you are from. So please send me an email. Until then… thanks for clicking on me.

Cheers,

Kerry

Post #20: Days 93 - 97 (November 15th – 19th, 2010)

2010-11-21T22:13:00.001-08:00

Dean’s Blog – First 100 Days

Post #20: Days 93 - 97 (November 15^th – 19^th, 2010)

The end of the beginning, or at least the end of the first 100 days, is looming. And 100 days has certainly helped get my feet wet in terms of being Dean.

This past Monday and Tuesday were spent with the external Faculty Unit Review Team. The full Unit Review process, for the most part, pre-dates my arrival but is perfect timing in terms of giving a new Dean feedback on the relative strengths and weaknesses (challenges) of the Faculty. I have only been provided with a preliminary verbal report from the review team and I felt it was positive and constructive. We are a good faculty – very good in fact – and the unit review team noted this in their summary meeting on Tuesday. Of course we are not perfect, and there was a number of points made that should help guide the next steps in ongoing faculty development and continuous quality improvement. I am eagerly waiting the written report, but the challenges noted included the need to better integrate the faculty – breaking down existing ‘silos’ and becoming a more efficient faculty in terms of operation.

Wednesday morning was spent in Dean’s Council where we were told to expect no growth in base budgets for the next 2-3 years. This comes on the heels of a number of very rich years in the province and means that we will have to work smarter to achieve our goals as a faculty. This news ties in with the recommendation from the Unit Review Team to become more efficient, which means the upcoming planning process will likely have some very tangible outcomes. This will be a great time to re-think what we do, and how we do it.

Thursday was my first Convocation as Dean of the Faculty and took place at the Jubilee Auditorium, the same place I received my PhD, sixteen years ago. I certainly would not have predicted I would ever be back on stage shaking the hands of our graduates, but am proud to have the opportunity to do so. We had a great turn out of faculty members on Thursday, and an enjoyable luncheon with the graduates in the Faculty Lounge. Graduation is often more for those who supported the graduates to completion – mothers, fathers, spouses, children – and I was pleased to see so many family there to enjoy the success of our graduates.

Ian Reade and I spent Friday morning at Enterprise Square with Katy Campbell, Dean of the Faculty of Extension, talking about the development of certificates, diplomas and professional Master degrees. This is an area that many Australian Universities have done a great deal of work in, including my former institution, and I see these as ways to develop and serve a cohort of life-long-learners in the areas that we teach and research. By partnering with the Faculty of Extension, we can gain mutual benefit from the courses we develop and deliver without incurring the entire burden (and cost) of this work. The approach that I have worked with in Australia is somewhat new to the Albertan post-secondary landscape, but I see great possibilities in benefiting from these ‘stair-cased’ awards and look forward to bringing some relevant programs online over the next few years.

I was very pleased to host Dr. Blair Whitmarsh, Dean of the School of Human Kinetics at Trinity Western University and alumni of our Faculty, this past weekend as he travelled to Edmonton to cheer on the TWU men’s and women’s volleyball teams. Blair and I are old friends, having studied – and coached – together as PhD students here at UofA. I owe our volleyball teams and coaches a debt of thanks, as they rebounded beautifully on Saturday night to ‘defeat’ TWU by a combined total of 8 sets to 7 to help me win my gentleman’s bet with Blair. Great games every one.

It is late Sunday night and I am sipping mulled wine in front of the fireplace as the temperature outside heads towards -20 degrees, on its way to a forecast low Tuesday morning of – 28… I’m loving it! (we will see if I still feel that way in January!)

Cheers,

Kerry

Post #19: Days 89-92 (November 8th – 12th, 2010)

2010-11-14T20:01:00.001-08:00

Dean’s Blog – First 100 Days

Post #19: Days 89-92 (November 8^th – 12^th, 2010)

Sunday night and its Battle of the Blades. It is indeed nice to be home!

Monday was spent visiting the Norwegian School of Sport Sciences in Oslo. I was struck by the similarity between our Faculty and NSSS in terms of size, scope and focus. It really is very similar to us, with almost the same number of undergraduate and post-graduate students, similar number of faulty and staff and similar in terms of research, teaching and sporting facilities. The primary difference is that it is a freestanding institution, where we are one of 17 different faculties. In addition, they are facing the same mandates that we have – increase research, enhance teaching experiences and bolster international collaborations.

I was there to sign an extension to an existing Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the NSSS, which should enhance our ability to support faculty and student – both graduate and undergraduate – exchange. The people at the NSSS were very welcoming, and I am confident that any future exchanges would be a great experience. The NSSS has a broad definition of ‘sport’ – more in line with the European ‘Sport for All’ programs that promote healthy physical activities by way of a sport model, but not with a major focus on performance or competition. I saw research and programs at the NSSS ranging from health-related physical activity, through outdoor recreation programs to testing of world champion athletes (cross country skiers).

One of the more interesting facility combinations that I saw at the NSSS was an outdoor artificial ice surface that used the excess heat produced from the ice plant to warm the outdoor soccer pitch (pictured). I am not sure we could pull off the same combination here, since they tell me Oslo rarely goes below -10 even though it is almost at 60 degrees north latitude!

Tuesday was a travel day – Oslo to Edmonton via London – a breeze compared to the long-haul flights to and from Australia, but a trip that still left me a little worse for wear on Wednesday, which turned out to be a recovery day. It was fortunate to have Thursday off for Remembrance Day, which meant that I was pretty much back on Edmonton time for the first time in a few weeks by Friday morning.

I took in the Volleyball matches featuring the Golden Bears and Pandas against one of my old alma maters, Brandon University. Congratulations to both our men’s and women’s teams for a couple of tough fought victories that evening. On Saturday I was in Calgary to watch the Hardy Cup, where our Golden Bear Football team was taking on the Calgary Dinos. The Bears won an amazing comeback victory against the Saskatchewan Huskies last weekend, but were not so fortunate yesterday. I mentioned in previous blogs that sport can feature very high highs, and very low lows. I think the Bears experienced both in the past seven days, to an extreme that is rarely seen. Character building games both.

Tomorrow and Tuesday are devoted to the Faculty Unit Review, an exercise in quality control and improvement that will certainly guide our planning and performance over the next few years. The review team has done an excellent job at pulling together the information needed to provide the review team with a detailed outline of the Faculty and its activities. I will receive preliminary feedback from the four-person team on Tuesday, and will receive a written report that I will have to provide a response to by the end of the month. I will make sure both are made available to the entire Faculty in order to ensure the transparency of the process.

I look forward to being home for at least a few weeks now. It will give me the chance to catch up on my emails and attack my list of things to do in a little more organized manner. And, of course, take part in the PERGSS trivia night this coming Thursday. I look forward to seeing everyone there!

Cheers,

Kerry

Post #18: Days 84-88

2010-11-07T15:09:00.001-08:00

Dean’s Blog – First 100 Days

Post #18: Days 84-88 (November 1^st – 5^th, 2010)

It’s Sunday and it’s Oslo. On my way to visit the Norwegian School of Sport Sciences tomorrow to have a bit of a look around and discuss the extension of an existing MOU between our faculty and NSSS. I have only been in Oslo for a few hours, but I was stuck by the fact that the sun set shortly after 3:30 this afternoon – and we think we are far north!

I was at Loughborough University in England last Monday and at Stirling University in Scotland for the balance of the week. Facility-wise, we sit squarely in between our UK and Chinese counterparts. As I mentioned in my previous posts, the Chinese have developed awe-inspiring facilities. By contrast both Loughborough and Stirling fall slightly short of the standards set by Beijing Sport University. Still it is very interesting to see the different approaches. BSU is an entire University devoted to sport, whereas Stirling and Loughborough are a Department of Sport Studies and a School of Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences (respectively) within multi-discipline-based Universities.

I remain convinced that the breadth and depth of our Faculty – covering sport sciences; leisure, recreation and tourism; and kinesiology, physical activity and health – and including campus recreation and our CIS athletes and sports are the envy of those I talked to in the UK. My hosts at both Universities were impressed by what I had to tell them about our Faculty.

My time at Stirling was most enjoyable. I gave a number of seminars to a range of faculty, staff, students as well as professionals from the community. In Stirling, I worked with groups interested in community-based physical activity promotion, framed by my work on the Australian 10,000 Steps program since 2001.

The last few days at the “UofS” were spent at their Highland Campus in Inverness, near Loch Ness (pictured – no Nessie sightings, however). I felt quite at home in the Scottish highlands –buying a Mackenzie tarten scarf to recognize my mother’s Scottish heritage. I though briefly about a kilt, which would have made my late mother very happy, but at almost $1500 for the full package I decided to keep my legs warm with a pair of pants instead!

I was privileged to be a special dinner guest of the Principal and Vice Chancellor the evening before the University of Stirling Winter Graduation at St. Andrews Cathedral on the banks of the River Ness. The ceremony was very memorable – complete with a bag-piper – and one that had me thinking of our upcoming Fall Graduation in a few weeks. It will be my first at UofA since I was on stage receiving my PhD!

The week finished with a seminar in Inverness with the cardiac rehab group from the Inverness Health Science Centre where I presented the work my team has been involved with in Australia for the past few years on internet-mediated phase II cardiac rehab. The issues in northern Scotland are similar to those in regional Australia – the pressure to extend the reach of existing services to individuals in need, while working within a limited budget. I imagine this is equally true in Alberta as well, and I look forward to getting some more work done on our internet-based chronic disease management programs over the next few months.

My trip to Stirling was at their expense, and I hope they got what they wanted out of my visit. I certainly enjoyed my time in Scotland. It was good to refocus on my research even if for only a short period of time. Research is something that can have the potential for universal impact, and can build great international collaborations. I do hope I can keep my finger in it when (if) I can get a handle on this Dean job!

The other great part about the Scottish trip was the education I received about their national drink – Scotch. A bit of background on the malting, distillation and maturation of scotch, as well as some information on the varieties and regional variations, combined with a few ‘drams’ of the product has me (almost) looking forward to the pending cold winter nights.

I am back on campus Wednesday – just in time for Remembrance Day. It will be good to be home.

Cheers,

Kerry

Post #17: Days 79-83 (October 25th-29th, 2010)

2010-10-31T17:05:00.001-07:00

Dean’s Blog – First 100 Days

Post #17: Days 79-83 (October 25^th-29^th, 2010)

It’s Sunday night and I am sitting in a hotel off Trafalgar Square – not far from the London Eye (pictured) - in London (England). First thing tomorrow I am on the train to Loughborough University to visit the School of Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences. Actually I am on my way to spend most of the week at the University of Stirling in Scotland. This is a trip that was set in my calendar months before I moved to Edmonton, as I am going to work with an old colleague from Australia who is now a Head of Department at Stirling. I decided to sandwich this research trip with visits to Loughborough and the Norwegian School of Sport Sciences, in an effort to get a peek at two international universities that are good comparators to our own.

Last week gave me the opportunity to make research presentations at the University of British Columbia, Okanagan Campus and at Red Deer College. The invite to Kelowna came from one of my former PhD students who is now an assistant professor at UBCO. The trip gave me the chance to see the growth at UBCO, which was Okanagan University College last time I visited Kelowna. The growth in the number of physical education/exercise science programs over the last 10-15 years in notable. It also raises questions in my mind of where all of our graduates will gain employment and why we have not seen a concomitant change in the number of graduate students during the same period. Our faculty should carefully consider the ideal balance that we, as a research-intensive faculty with a strong graduate program, should achieve in terms of undergraduate/graduate student ratios.

The trip to Red Deer was part of the “Bridging the Gap” series, where I met with a number of potential students and gave me the chance to perfect, or at least improve, the presentation I made the day before in Kelowna. The Faculty has developed strong ties with RDC, and the majority of the transfer students from RDC come to study with us. As such we have a vested interest in the program at Red Deer. To ensure that the communication between the institutions in maximized, we are setting meetings with RDC and the our other transfer program partners, Grande Prairie Regional College and Grant MacEwan University prior to Christmas. Thanks to Dr. Pierre Baudin for his work on these meetings.

Last week also gave me the chance to interview and appoint Ann Hodgson’s replacement as Executive Assistant to the Dean. I am pleased to say that Ms. Keri Blue has agreed to be the interim EA to the Dean during Ann’s temporary promotion to University Hall. Keri comes to the position from the same place that Ann did – Athletics (sorry Vang), and I look forward to working with her for the next year. Of course this now gives us a wealth of Kerry’s/Keri’s in the Office of the Dean! Thanks to Brian Esslinger and Marj Cayford for their help in the appointment process.

When I get back from overseas we will be hosting the Academic Unit Review committee, who will provide us with feedback on our submission and on the results of their visit and interviews. I look forward to the process, as it will assist in the development of the upcoming academic/faculty plan. The process is an interesting one from the position as an incoming Dean as it provides me with a great deal of internal and external feedback on what we are doing, and how we are doing it. I am hopeful that we will be well positioned as a result of the review to make key strategic responses to squarely position ourselves as one of the leading Faculties of Physical Education and Recreation in the world – a ‘big ask’ as they say Down Under, but an exciting challenge.

Thanks for reading my blog. Next week… Oslo.

Cheers,

Kerry

Post #16: Days 74-78 (October 18th – 22nd, 2010)

2010-10-25T00:16:00.001-07:00

Dean’s Blog – First 100 Days

Post #16: Days 74-78 (October 18^th – 22^nd, 2010)

The past week was a travel week – 3 days in Beijing and 3 days in Jasper!

The Beijing trip was aimed at consolidating the agreements made with Beijing Sport University (BSU) during their trip to UofA in August of this year. Strong and meaningful relations with China are major university-wide goals. As a faculty we are well along in developing relations with China’s leading sports university. The tangible outcomes of our meetings should include reciprocal faculty visitations that will involve our top teaching and research faculty members. In addition we are looking to attract Chinese graduate students to visit, and to take complete degrees with us. There were also discussions regarding the possibility of an articulated undergraduate degree that will allow Chinese students to complete the last two years of their undergraduate degree with us at UofA, and our students the possibility of doing the same in Beijing.

Aside from the agreements discussed, we were able to tour the BSU sport and laboratory facilities that were, in a word, awesome. The scale of the buildings were amazing, with their field house including a 100 meter indoor track with a 20 meter run-out (pictured)… that’s a BIG BUILDING. Their Sport Science building included over 20 ‘altitude hotel rooms’, where athletes can ‘sleep-high/train-low’. The hotel rooms could simulate altitudes of up to 4000 meters, where the altitude laboratory, complete with treadmill and other testing gear, can achieve simulated altitudes of up to 6000 meters! During our visit I met athletes who had won a total of 10 Olympic Gold medals. There is a great deal for us to learn from our collaboration with BSU as we seek to consolidate our international reputation in sport science.

A quick trip back from China and a drive to Jasper got me to the annual Alberta Recreation and Parks Association (ARPA) conference. The Faculty is a partner in a tri-partite agreement with the ARPA and the Alberta Sport, Recreation, Parks and Wildlife Foundation (ASRPWF) of the Alberta government in an effort to enhance the field of recreation at the educational and professional level. This unique partnership is highly valued by our partners and promises to position the Faculty as the leader in post-secondary recreation education in Alberta and across the country.

The conference was a great opportunity to meet with our partners and many influential people in the field of recreation in the province. I also got to dust off some of my own research to present the work that we have been doing in Australia based around the 10,000 Steps program. I was very happy to see the strong ties that our program has in the recreation profession in Alberta, including the Deputy Minister and the CEO of ARPA. As we seek to produce the leaders of tomorrow, it is fantastic to see that the Faculty has already had its hand in producing the leaders of today!

One of the coolest things at the conference was the number of students in attendance. We had over 20 of our undergraduate recreation students in Jasper thanks to financial support from the City of Calgary. I took the time to thank the manager from the City of Calgary for the support and congratulated him on a great effort to support the student attendance. I am confident that having the students attend the conference helps them gain a better understanding of the exciting opportunities that lay before them. The ARPA put on a great conference, and I am sure that our students will be valuable long-term ARPA members as a result of their attendance.

That was a lot of travel for one week, but I think valuable in terms of building our international relations in the area of sport and sport science, and strengthening our existing partnership provincially in the field of recreation. Now if I could just figure out what time zone I am in…

Cheers,

Kerry

Post #15: Days 70-73 (October 12th – 15th, 2010)

2010-10-17T11:33:00.001-07:00

Dean’s Blog – First 100 Days

Post #15: Days 70-73 (October 12^th – 15^th, 2010)

The end of a week shortened by Thanksgiving finds me writing my blog in the Air Canada lounge waiting for a flight to Beijing. This will be a very quick trip, as I look to meet up with the Provost at Beijing Sports University (BSU) to consolidate the work that the faculty has been pursuing for some time now. BSU is one of the top ‘sports’ universities in China (the other being in Shanghai – a bit like a Calgary Edmonton rivalry on a slightly bigger numerical scale) and one that we now are the only Canadian University to have an agreement with that should lead to various exchanges, many supported under the China Scholarship Council (CSC). I hope to land 3-5 PhD students, funded by the CSC, to study with us in areas of mutual interest. This should lead to other student and faculty exchanges that will build strong academic and sporting bridges, not only between our two Universities, but between the two countries as well. I look forward to updating the Faculty on my travels in a Dean’s Briefing session in November.

The past week had some exciting moments, one of the highlights being the discussion with those involved in the Coaching stream about the consolidation of our existing Masters of Coaching degree and the potential development of ‘specialty’ Masters of Coaching in conjunction with national and international sports governing bodies. These are big and bold dreams, but if we are able to initiate these ideas, I believe that the Faculty will become a magnet to increasingly attract students from across Canada and around the world to study within our program. I was able to attend the meeting for an hour, but was pleased to see the group continue on for another hour of solid discussion. I will be trying to assist in the generation of similar ideas in other areas of our academic offerings.

Separate meetings last week with the Deans of the Faculty of Medicine and Rehab Medicine have started to lay the groundwork for the establishment of the Faculty’s new institute of physical activity and health (AIPAH – Alberta Institute of Physical Activity and Health), which will be housed in the new PAW Centre, and for the ongoing development of the Glen Sather Sports Medicine Clinic as it prepares to move to exciting (and ever so much larger) new ‘digs’ in Edmonton Clinic South. Both meetings were examples of how we need to work together as Faculties and across disciplines to develop world-class research, teaching and service activities. I was pleased with the reception that I got from the other Deans, which speaks highly for the regard that Physical Education and Recreation has developed across the university.

The week finished with an evening at the CanAm volleyball tournament, highlighted by an exciting come-from-behind victory by the Golden Bears over the visiting University of Hawaii squad. Just to think that a year from now we will be hosting the same tournament in the brand new competition gym at the GO Centre on the South Campus. Should be an interesting 12 months!

Cheers,

Kerry

Post #14: Days 65-69 (October 4th – 8th, 2010)

2010-10-11T21:04:00.001-07:00

Dean’s Blog – First 100 Days

Post #14: Days 65-69 (October 4^th – 8^th, 2010)

It’s Monday night, as I take an extra day to blog thanks to Thanksgiving. Australia doesn’t celebrate Thanksgiving, so it is nice to be back in Canada to enjoy the holiday complete with a big turkey. Speaking of things Canadian, I am sitting writing my blog in front of the TV (bad form I know) watching “Battle of the Blades”, again something quintessentially Canadian!

Last week saw a big step forward in the development of the new Physical Activity and Wellness (PAW) Centre, as we got the thumbs up from the Strategic Initiatives Committee (SIG) to move the process and planning foreword to the next step. With the functional plans in place, and the business case now approved, we are now only a month or so away from seeing the detailed plans of the new building that will change the face of the faculty on the North Campus. Once the detailed plans are available there will be opportunity provided for comments from faculty and staff.

I took in the annual Killam awards last week, and was pleased to meet Camilla Knight who was the faculty’s Memorial Graduate Prize winner for 2010. Camilla took her undergraduate and Master’s degrees at Loughborough and came to UofA to take her PhD under the supervision of Dr. Nick Holt. Her work is on ‘optimal’ parental involvement in youth sport. Having spent many years working with, and being a youth sport parent, it will be great to see her findings.

Wednesday was spent in Grande Prairie, where I gave the initial “Bridging the Gap” lecture on behalf of the faculty to students at Grande Prairie Regional College. It was great fun to dust off some of my work in health-related physical activity and present it to an entirely new audience. There was some great discussion around the basic concepts relating to population health and human behavior that highlighted the conceptual differences between individual exercise prescription and population-based physical activity recommendations. At some point in the not-too-distant future, I hope to make a similar presentation in Edmonton.

The week ahead is a short one, but one with some significant meetings beginning with our new Deans and Directors Council (DDC) meeting. The DDC is new to the faculty, as I look to integrate the executive function of the faculty. One of the first orders of business for the DDC is the preparation of the Academic Budget Measures, a document that will drive the budget decisions made to support the faculty in 2011. We report against five common measures (enrolment management, teaching, research, fund development and international enrolment) and three faculty-specific measures to help central administration determine final budget allocation for next year. Of course much of the performance in these areas is complete – we are only reporting on our performance – but we will be sure to consider how best to address these measures for future years to maximize our budgetary requests.

That’s it for this week. Personally I was disappointed to see big Georges Laraque go from “Battle of the Blades”, but will keep following the show. My money is on Todd Warriner and Isabelle Brasseur.

Cheers,

Kerry

Post #13: Days 60-64 (September 27th – October 1st, 2010)

2010-10-03T21:38:00.000-07:00

Dean’s Blog – First 100 Days

Post #13: Days 60-64 (September 27^th – October 1^st, 2010)

This past week saw my first Faculty Council meeting. Attendance was at an apparent all-time high, which provided me with my initial opportunity to address the faculty in an official forum. My address was a calculated gamble – challenging the Faculty to achieve great(er) things - and one that will take some time to determine if it has worked in the way intended.

The Faculty is, of course, a very strong faculty but one that has lost its main historic competitive advantage – that of being the first, and for a long time one of the few PhD granting faculties in our field in the Commonwealth. In addition, the ‘new generation’ universities in the province are, and will be offering undergraduate programs that will be in direct competition with our offerings. Because of this, a majority of my thoughts since my arrival, and for a good part of the time prior to my arrival, have been aimed at thinking about how we can obtain an advantage that would make us a ‘magnet’ faculty to attract the highest quality undergraduate and graduate students as well as the highest caliber faculty and staff (and of course the highest quality of student athlete).

Currently fifteen percent of our undergraduate students come from outside Alberta (12% other Canada, 3% non-Canadian). With a University target of 15% of our undergraduate student cohort to be international, this tells me we need to think carefully about distinguishing our undergraduate programs from similar ones offered across Canada and around the world. This will be a collective challenge for the faculty to address through the upcoming faculty planning process. Many find planning a less then exciting process, but I think if we are coming up with exciting plans, the process can be one of the most stimulating things we can do. At least that is how I feel when I am planning my holidays!

Another area I see as a potential to develop is that of graduate professional development and lifelong learning. With careful thought and planning, and the development of strategic partnerships with industry, I believe there is great potential in attracting top professionals in our areas of strength from around the country and around the world to pursue graduate studies in our faculty. By carefully selecting the areas for us to develop these strengths in, a future world-wide network with a genealogical tie back to the University of Alberta in a manner similar to that existing with our PhD graduates from a decade or more ago could be developed.

To move these types of ideas forward and, more importantly to generate ideas from the knowledge base within the faculty itself, there is a need for collective engagement. Structure can positively affect engagement. Schools/departments are instruments to cluster interests around discipline areas, whereas research centres/institutes do the same around research groupings. I will be seeking input as to how we might develop or implement structure to enhance continuous quality improvement in our various areas of scholarly achievement.

Faculty Council was the biggest thing for me last week – a chance for me to set the stage in terms of moving a change process forward - but of course Faculty Council wasn’t the only thing for me last week. Thursday night was spent at a working dinner with the Oilers management group around a number of issues. Principal to faculty was initial discussion around a Hockey Canada Institute, an idea that has appeal depending on how it develops over the longer term. Although not much of a hockey player myself, I can see where the development of a strong academic institute focusing on ice hockey could be one of the magnets to attract a world-wide audience to study and research in the faculty.

Next week features a key meeting to get approval to move forward on the Physical Activity and Wellness (PAW) Centre. A great deal of work has gone into the development of a business plan to support the development and operations of the Centre, and I will be in front of the Strategic Initiatives Committee (SIG) on Tuesday to argue the case. Fingers crossed…

Cheers,

Kerry

Post #12: Days 55-59 (September 20th – 24th, 2010)

2010-09-26T22:42:00.000-07:00

Dean’s Blog – First 100 Days

Post #12: Days 55-59 (September 20^th – 24^th, 2010)

The past week was one of celebration. The celebrations started with a Sports Wall of Fame dinner at former Dean Gerry Glasford’s house. Gerry and his wife Alice coordinated a dinner to celebrate this year’s inductees, which included former Golden Bear football player Dr. John Wilson, former Golden Bear basketball player Greg DeVries and former Panda basketball player and coach, Trix Baker. The evening was a great chance to meet with the inductees and their friends and family prior to the more formal event the next evening at the Winspear Centre for Music, where the inductees were again honoured as part of the University of Alberta Alumni Recognition Awards. All three inductees did double duty attending both ceremonies, shaking a lot of hands, and reliving some old times with friends and colleagues. I was pleased to be involved and already have some ideas for nominations for next year’s awards. I wonder if the Dean has any pull in these matters!

Friday had me handing our awards at the Jubilee Auditorium for the annual celebration of Teaching and Learning then heading quickly to the South Campus via the LRT to take in the homecoming football game between the Golden Bears and University of Saskatchewan Huskies. The turnout was great, giving me a chance to meet a number of long time supporters and past faculty members (and GUBA!). Unfortunately the Huskies did not cooperate, defeating the Golden Bears in a critical mid-season game.

Saturday morning featured the annual Dean's Breakfast with 25 & 50-year grads at the Royal Mayfair Golf Course. With the help of Pam Thiel from PERGCS and Wanda Wetterberg from PERAA we were able to acknowledge three of our 1985 graduates; Trix Baker (BPE ’80; MA ’85), Dawn Green (BA Rec. Admin ’85) and Jane Lagace (BPE ’85, MA ’04) and Gerry Young, who graduated with his BPE in 1960, fifty years ago! I was also pleased to be able to make a special presentation to Ann Toole (BPE 1974, BA Rec Admin 1976). Anne, who celebrated her 90^th birthday on September 10, came to the U of A as a mature student and is the oldest person to obtain an undergraduate degree from our faculty, graduating with her second degree at age 56!!!

Of course it was great to take part in the celebrations of the past week (weeks actually, when I include the 100^th Anniversary of Golden Bears Football), but I am only the Dean who goes and shakes hands and makes a little speech. The big thanks go to those in Athletics and Development who spent many hours preparing everything to go as smoothly as it did. I know that Cindi Berg and Jocelyne Lambert, among others, breathed a huge sigh of relief when the week came to a close with the Dean’s breakfast.

The real work of a Dean is to lead and manage the Faculty and the next week are key steps in my role in each of these aspects. From a management perspective, I am meeting with the faculty management group to discuss ways to streamline and coordinate the executive arm of faculty governance. As the Faculty looks to the future, informed decisions will have to be made and it is important that from a management perspective all the right people are providing input to those decisions. In terms of leadership, next week is my first opportunity to formally address the Faculty by way of Faculty Council. I look forward with great anticipation to giving my first ‘State of the Faculty’ address. It is here where I will give my views on where the Faculty has been, where it is and, most importantly, where I think it needs to go over the next five to ten years to maintain, or regain its position as the leading Faculty of Physical Education and Recreation worldwide. Should be interesting!

Cheers,

Kerry

Post #11: Days 50-54 (September 13th – 17th, 2010)

2010-09-19T22:30:00.000-07:00

Dean’s Blog – First 100 Days

Post #11: Days 50-54 (September 13^th – 17^th, 2010)

I hit the halfway point of my first 100 days on Monday of this past week. The learning curve has been steep, and I don’t remember the names, or the faces for that matter of all the people I have met in the first 50 days of my appointment, but overall I do feel like I am getting a bit of a handle on the job.

Although I have been in Australia since the late 1990’s, a lot of higher education administration is similar between the two countries. I have spent quite a bit of time deciding what I prefer about the way we do things at UofA, and what I prefer about the way that Australian Universities operate. Certainly one of my biggest surprises since assuming the role has been the restrictions that we live under in terms of being entrepreneurial in educational offerings. We worked hard in Australia to tailor undergraduate and graduate offerings to a broad range of learners, and I am keen to do the same here. Ideally, I would like to see us develop specialty Masters degrees in all areas of Faculty research strength. To me this is a natural partnership – translating our research strengths to graduate degrees that will be of great appeal to professionals in the area as they pursue a goal of life-long learning. The challenge, as I see it, is to develop a program with a related income stream so that we can build capacity in areas of current strength - this is the ‘Australian model’. But there is no point in developing programs if income and increased capacity does not follow, otherwise we will simply overload already busy faculty and staff. I will keep working on this idea, as I think it still has some ‘legs’ and look forward to bringing this discussion to the wider faculty members.

On Thursday I issued a ‘Deans Jersey Day Challenge’ to coincide with Participaction’s National Jersey Day. I agreed to make a donation of $1 to the United Way for every staff or faculty member that wore a sports jersey to work on Friday. By Friday we had 108 confirmed sightings of jersey-wearing faculty members, most of which are in the picture above. I was pleasantly surprised when Dr. John Spence, our Associate Dean Research, Dr. Stu Petersen, our Associate Dean Graduate Studies, Dr. Pierre Baudin (Associate Dean Undergrad), Mike McTeague or Associate Director of Athletics and Bob Kinasewich, our Director of Development all agreed to match my donation. That, combined with a generous donation of $485 from the Glen Sather Sports Medicine Clinic, meant we donated a total of $1133 to United Way. Thanks to all who participated. It was an enjoyable way to help out a worthy cause.

The weekend was busy with two very important groups – our alumni, and our first year students. The Golden Bear Football Alumni were celebrating their 100^th anniversary of the program this past weekend and it was a great honor to take part in the proceedings. The tradition and history embodied in the football program was on full display over the weekend, which culminated with a banquet at the Radisson Hotel on Saturday night. It was fantastic to see the support for the program provided by the alumni, who gave cheques totaling $108,000 to assist the program at the dinner that night. From past students to present, I was able to drop in on the Faculty’s annual “Rookie Camp” at Pigeon Lake on Saturday. With over 100 ‘rookies’ taking part in some serious bonding by way of not-so-serious competition, it was apparent that we have a lot of future alumni who will have a strong bond to our faculty for many years to come. The camp was run by our Physical Education and Recreation Council of Students (PERCS), who did a great job at initiating our class of first year students. Thanks to Pam Thiel and the rest of the PERCS exec for their work on the weekend.

The upcoming week is again heavily focused on the tradition of our faculty. We have our Sports Wall of Fame inductee dinner and awards functions, as well as the annual Homecoming Weekend. I hope everyone gets a chance to be involved in the festivities. Obviously the term will soon settle into more of a routine – which generally means a few less functions and a little more work.

Cheers,

Kerry

Post #10: Days 46-49 (September 7th – 10th, 2010)

2010-09-12T22:09:00.001-07:00

Dean’s Blog – First 100 Days

Post #10: Days 46-49 (September 7^th – 10^th, 2010)

It was a cool – I would call it cold – wet start to the academic year, with thousands of students, staff and faculty flooding back onto campus. I started a short, but busy week by introducing myself to the first year students at our orientation meeting on Tuesday. There was a real spirit and life to the meeting that was generated by the students themselves – it certainly it seems like they are all looking forward to first year university life! This is the class of 2014/2015 and is one that I will follow closely, since we are both rookies together this year.

Wednesday afternoon was spent in meetings with the Saville Centre staff. The Saville Centre, and the entire South Campus are new to me since my departure in the late 1990’s. The world-class curling and tennis facilities will soon be joined by the completion of the GO Centre, which will add more than 200,000 square feet of court sports to the South Campus facility group by this time next year. In addition to discussions identifying the need for more parking and storage, we spent a number of hours talking about the potential of the current and future facilities to be the basis of a multi-sport long-term athlete development (LTAD) program that would pave the way for involvement in sport and physical activity across the lifespan. I have asked the group to pull together a one or two page brief on their ideas so that we might be able to bring it to the faculty for wider discussion. Certainly we must take strategic long-term advantage of the amazing facilities that we will soon be host to.

On Thursday I was pleased to ‘host’ the Faculty’s Welcome back party for faculty, staff and families at Edmonton’s Telus World of Science. This was an enjoyable evening that was all too short, as I was unable to get around to all tables to truly welcome everyone back. Still, it was a nice chance for everyone to reconnect prior to the rush of the upcoming semester. I was also given the chance to try out a Segway “Personal Transporter” under the watchful eye of a Telus staff member (see pic), and note that our Associate Dean of Research and our Men’s Volleyball coach were both happy to recommend my attempt at Segwaying, but failed to ‘step-up’ when invited following my trial. Another time perhaps… A big thanks goes to Ann Hodgson and Suzanne French and others for their work on ensuring the success of the evening.

At the end of the week I was able to spend a little time working and discussing research with colleagues. I was pleased to meet with the Multicultural Health Broker group in Edmonton to discuss work we started in Australia looking at tailoring physical activity and health promotion messages to increase activity in migrant groups. I find work with community groups such as this to be very rewarding, especially if we can value add to the activities of these groups as we complete the research process.

I finished the week on the golf course with our partners from the Alberta Recreation Parks and Wildlife (ARPA) Foundation and Alberta Sport, Recreation Parks and Wildlife Foundation. We have struck a tripartite agreement with these two partners, and I was pleased to have the opportunity to spend some time with the Deputy Minister discussing matters related to much of our faculty. Golf is not really my sport but I don’t think I embarrassed myself. Still, I am conscious that my dad is almost able to “shoot his age” over 18 holes, whereas I only manage to "shoot mine" over 9!

Tomorrow is the halfway point of my first 100 days. I have met most, but certainly not all of the faculty and feel that I am getting my feet on the ground regarding the strengths of and challenges for the faculty over the next few years. The current unit review, which was submitted this week, lays the basis for the development of our long-term (2-, 5- and 10 year) plan. The planning process will be developed over the months following the reception of the external feedback on the current unit review submission.

That’s about it for this week. All the best to the faculty, staff and students for the current term.

Cheers,

Kerry

Post #9: Days 41-45 (August 30 – September 3, 2010)

2010-09-06T22:36:00.000-07:00

Dean’s Blog – First 100 Days

Post #9: Days 41-45 (August 30 – September 3, 2010)

Week 9 and I am certainly back in Alberta – frost on my morning walk on the last day in August in the city, and snow (pictured) and almost a grizzly sighting on a hike up to Edith Cavell Meadows in Jasper on the weekend (almost a sighting because all the other parties we passed going up and coming down saw the bear, unfortunately – or fortunately - all we saw was the snow).

The mountains and the change of season are something I missed during my time in Australia. The mountain parks are a special part of Alberta, Canada and the University of Alberta. Certainly we must feature them in more of our teaching, research and scholarly activity.

Work-wise, last week saw my first Dean’s Council – a relatively formal gathering of all the Deans in a meeting chaired by the Provost. This will be the environment where the relevance of the faculty will be evident and many decisions affecting the faculty will occur. I look forward to informing the other Deans on the work we do, and promoting the efforts of the faculty in this forum.

I had a couple of interesting discussions last week with people both in, and outside of the faculty, about the role of research at the University. The concept of a research-intensive university routinely comes under fire as we struggle with understanding and achieving the balance between learning, teaching and research. Too often we think of teaching and research as separate activities – funded and measured differently – with a sort of inverse relationship, quality-wise, between the two. During my time in Australia there was much debate around this topic, much of which is outlined in the following quote from the Australian conference on the integration of research, teaching and learning…

Exposing undergraduates to the vital link between teaching and research is one of the cornerstones on which a competitive Australia will be nurtured. If we fail to embolden our students to be creative, the future of Australia in 2020 and beyond, when our natural resources inevitably decline, will be bleak. It is vital that we now connect undergraduate students with research clearly and explicitly, to enable Australia to be a genuinely innovative knowledge society. (First Australian Summit on the Integration of Research Teaching and Learning, Communiqué, 2009).

I don’t see this as soley an Australian issue, as my discussions last week indicate. These are great issues for our faculty to debate. As we seek to consolidate our position as a leading faculty in the country, the commonwealth and world-wide, we need also to be leaders in creating graduates suited for a genuinely innovative knowledge society. I look forward to the opportunity to generate debate within the faculty on issues such as these. For those interested in the discussions that have gone on ‘Down Under’ regarding the Teaching-Research nexus, please check out the following link: http://trnexus.edu.au/index.php?page=what-is-the-trn

In closing I would like to highlight the upcoming 2011 Pan Pacific Conference of Medicine and Science in Sport, which is a joint conference between the Queensland Branch of Sports Medicine Australia (SMA) and the Sports Medicine Council of Alberta (SMC)

http://www.sportmedab.ca/id/1110. The conference will be held in Hawaii at the end of January next year, and will be an excellent opportunity for those with an interest in Sports Medicine, broadly defined, to meet and exchange views with our Australian colleagues. I look forward to seeing a number of faculty there early in the New Year.

Cheers,

Kerry

Post #8: Days 36-40 (August 23-27, 2010)

2010-08-29T20:57:00.000-07:00

Dean’s Blog – First 100 Days

Post #8: Days 36-40 (August 23-27, 2010)

The past week was a real confirmation as far as my decision to return to UofA from Australia. The breadth of activities in the past week was staggering – ranging from a local to a national to an international focus. I had expected UofA to be an exciting place to return to. Last week exceeded all expectations!

The week began with two days spent at the annual Deans’ retreat, which provided me with my first opportunity to meet the president of the University, Indira Samarasekera. Indira’s (yes, it seems we are already on a first name basis!) initial address to the Deans’ forum detailed the challenges and the opportunities in front of the University. Budgets are tight and could get tighter, but generally speaking Alberta is doing better than the rest of Canada, and certainly is better off than our American counterparts. But the focus was not on budget control, more so on the opportunities to move the Dare to Discover strategic plan forward, with a vision of a world class, if not world leading university, whose goal is “the uplifting of the whole of the people”. As I mature – or at least age – I enjoy the process of planning more and more. It is the process of bringing people onside with a vision, a plan, strategy and actions that is most fulfilling. The Dean’s retreat was two days well spent learning the aspirational goals of the University and its leadership team. I feel we are in good hands.

Wednesday morning was the absolute highlight of a highlight week, when I had the chance to meet and greet our new (and some returning) graduate students. It was great to see so many students – many from overseas – as they start on their graduate student journey. When I was a coach, I always enjoyed working with elite athletes who dared to dream of success on the national and international stage. Graduate students are our academic elites. They are daring to dream of international success in the field of academics, where their research and publications will be displayed on the world stage. It strikes me that we are all just coaches after all.

Wednesday we took a group from the faculty to lunch with Lance Armstrong (and 1100 of his closest friends). Dr. Kerry Courneya and his research team have received funding from Armstrong’s Livestrong Foundation, and I was pleased to be in a position to support the valuable work being done by the Canadian Breast Council Foundation. As researchers, athletes and faculty members we are often in a position of asking for, and receiving support from many sources. From time to time we need to give back to the community as well. Lance Armstrong, no matter what you may think of him, is certainly a person who has contributed to an important cause. Personally, I found him to be a pretty cool character. Relaxed and funny – not the personality type that the media portraits (of course I haven’t lined up beside him in a competitive situation).

Thursday was spent with the delegation from the Beijing Sports University (BSU) - see the photo above. The day was the culmination of a great deal of work by Dr. Tom Hinch, our Associate Dean Community and International Engagement and our former Dean, Dr. Mike Mahon and featured the signing of a memorandum of understanding between BSU and the University of Alberta. Having grown up during the Cold War, where China was a closed shop and a mystery to the western world, it is exciting to see the role that Universities play in breaking down political and cultural barriers. Tom and I spent a late night at the hotel of the BSU delegation talking sport, eating tofu and drinking green tea. It was an evening that I will not soon forget. Thanks to Hai Dong Liang, one of our graduate students who provided invaluable translation services on the evening. I look forward to the possibility of future student and faculty exchanges with BSU.

The coming week sees students return to campus. My drive in will get much longer, and my swims more crowded, but I enjoy the return of student life to the campus each fall – just like I enjoy its departure in the spring!

Cheers,

Kerry

Post #7: Days 31-35 (August 16-20, 2010)

2010-08-22T23:05:00.001-07:00

Dean’s Blog – First 100 Days

Post #7: Days 31-35 (August 16-20, 2010)

The past week and next are both spent with a great deal of time in the company of the other Deans on campus. The annual Dean’s retreat starts Monday for two days at Campus Saint Jean, but I certainly got a head start this past week with dinner with the Health Sciences Deans, lunch with Dr. Katy Campbell, the Dean of Extension and a morning spent with Dr. Marc Arnal, Dean of the Campus Saint Jean. Each meeting had a similar theme – a bit of introduction and a discussion on how we can best collaborate – faculty to faculty – for mutual benefit.

The evening spent with the Deans from the Health Science Council (HSC) was a time for the group to refocus. Much of the HSC’s time over the past few years has been spent in the development of the two new Edmonton Clinics –North and South. Clinic North is right across the street from our buildings and there is a proposal to connect our new PAW Centre and Clinic North with an underground tunnel. Although our Faculty has no physical presence in Clinic North, work is well underway on the plans to move the Glen Sather Clinic to Edmonton Clinic South when it opens sometime in 2013. Although both North and South Clinics are far from complete, it was time for the HSC to start thinking of future plans, now that the buildings have gained momentum.

As we prepare to release the functional plans for the new PAW Centre, I see that it will soon be time for our Faculty to refocus after (during) a period of rapid facility growth. There is no doubt that all the new buildings will be tremendous legacies for the Faculty, and will solve some of the space crises that have been at the top of many people’s lists of ‘biggest challenges’. As I look to the future with these great facilities, I am interested in filling them with the best people that we can. Great faculty and staff are more important than great buildings, so we will be very fortunate when we have both. One of the goals that we are beginning to develop some strategies around is the ability to attract one, or more, Endowed Chairs for the Faculty. Success on this front will not only increase critical mass in areas of the Faculty, but will also reflect the changing nature of our fields of study in terms of scholarly work and importance.

It is becoming apparent that the job of Dean brings with it some caloric challenges. I also enjoyed a lunch last week with Rick Curtis, the Executive Director of the Alberta Recreation and Parks Association (ARPA). Like many recreation professionals in the province, Rick is a graduate of our Faculty and we had a great discussion of the role the Faculty plays with the profession in Alberta, across Canada and internationally. The ARPA has a number of exciting activities underway that will impact us. The association is hosting the First National Recreation Summit next October at Lake Louise. Rick is keen to make the Summit an effective assembly of leaders in recreation nation-wide and I am sure that we will be heavily involved in ensuring this success. The ARPA is also working on the establishment of a ‘Centre of Excellence’ in recreation and well-being, and discussions are underway as to how the Faculty can assist in the establishment and operation of this centre.

The weather is cooling off and the campus activity is heating up. Next week I get the chance to say a few words to the incoming graduate students (at least I think they have given me a small speaking part). I remember clearly my first day on campus as a graduate student more than 20 years ago. I am sure that I was told the work would be tough (it was) and rewarding (it was that too), but I don’t recall anyone telling me that I might possibly be a future leader in the faculty (I wouldn’t have believed them!). Maybe I should tell this year’s class what might lie ahead for them…

Cheers,

Kerry

Post #6: Days 26-30 (August 9-13, 2010)

2010-08-15T22:41:00.001-07:00

Dean’s Blog – First 100 Days

Post #6: Days 26-30 (August 9-13, 2010)

The past week was split evenly between the Faculty’s past and future. The week started with (retired) Coach Clare Drake dropping in to meet me. I was pleased to get his autograph on his book, and then spent far too little time talking about his career and the history of the Golden Bear hockey program. To me Clare is the Canadian John Wooden - one of the winningest coaches in CIS/CIAU history and a classic leader. His teams are a storied part of the Faculty’s history.

The week ended with me sending out the notice that Dale Schuhla has decided to step down as Director of Athletics within the Faculty. Dale has worked for the University for 25 years, and was a successful student athlete before that. I can certainly appreciate how difficult it is for Dale to leave a position he loves because of health problems. Over the years I have seen and worked with far too many people kept working even thought they really didn’t want to, so I understand how hard it is to have to stop working when the desire to continue is still there.

Dale and Clare are two great examples of the Faculty’s rich history and tradition, but my time spent this past week in a series of one-on-one meetings with our Assistant Professors remind me that we can not be complacent as we face the future. Academically we no longer hold the relative monopoly on PhD provision in Canada, or the Commonwealth we once did. When I arrived in 1989 to start my studies, the Faculty was one of only two PhD granting institutions in Canada. That is no longer the case. And, although we were the first PhD granting faculty in the Commonwealth, there are now no fewer than 28 Universities in Australia alone that offer PhDs in Physical Education and Recreation or its many variants.

Mid-week I met with the university recruiting team where our challenges in recruiting were laid out to me. At my previous Institution my recruiting challenges were much different. We were approximately 20% under our student quota, which translated into serious budget constraints. The latest statistics for our undergraduate programs within the Faculty at UofA show that we are more that 10 percent over-subscribed. This still leaves us with a recruiting challenge, however it is a qualitative, not quantitative challenge. How do we attract the best students into our program? Indeed how do we define the best student recruit?

One of the challenges pointed out during the meeting by the staff who attend the recruiting functions is the difficulty in ‘selling’ potential students on what our faculty does and what we offer. It seems our brand – which is so steeped in history and tradition – is not the brand that many of our future students are seeking. The breadth and depth of offerings within the faculty is vastly different than our name implies, and there is a constant challenge to educate and convince future recruits what it is we do within the Faculty.

I am aware of all, or at least most of the arguments for and against changing the name of the Faculty, but pragmatically it may be easier to keep the traditions of the Faculty alive with alumni under a new name, than convince potential future alumni what we do and why they should study with us under the current one. This is certainly something worth revisiting again. I know it will be a passionate and heartfelt debate.

You never know, maybe it might even spur some people to comment on this week’s blog!

Cheers,

Kerry

Post #5: Days 22-25 (August 3-6, 2010)

2010-08-08T22:17:00.001-07:00

Dean’s Blog – First 100 Days

Post #5: Days 22-25 (August 3-6, 2010)

Week #5 puts me one quarter of the way through my first one hundred days. The short week resulting from the “August Long” started and ended with meetings relating to the new Physical Activity and Wellness (PAW) Centre. Functionally, the plans are starting to take shape, and we should be able to reveal some of the concept drawings within the next month or so. Obviously we are all excited about the promise of a new building, but the process shows me that the key element behind the success of the new building - or any venture we may take on – is people.

There are many professionals involved in the planning, development and project management of the new PAW Centre, but the most impressive to me are the leaders from the Students’ Union who are our major partners in the project. Just think back to when you were a young undergraduate student (which is much further back for some than others). I recall what I was doing at that age, and won’t repeat it here, but I can assure you that I wasn’t agreeing to a $30 million dollar mortgage amortized over the next 35 years for an icon campus building! It is exciting to work with young people who are the leaders of today and of tomorrow. We are privileged to be in this position.

Just as success in the development of our new facilities is based on the people involved, so is the current and future success of the faculty in academics, athletics and recreation. We are in the people business, serving the, students (undergraduate and graduate), athletes and all the participants in our recreational programs and facilities. As important as it is to attract and develop our students and athletes, it is equally important to attract and develop faculty and staff in the pursuit of excellence in every aspect of what we do.

I spent one afternoon last week with Dr. Kerry Courneya, our Canada Research Chair (CRC) in Physical Activity and Cancer. I have known Kerry for many years, and followed his career for even longer. Kerry has done an excellent job in developing his professional networks, building his research teams – both internally and externally – and his research profile, and is now reaping the benefits in terms of a tremendous international reputation in the area of physical activity and cancer. Kerry is a great exemplar for our younger faculty on how to build a base for long-term success as a professor. I recommend that all the Assistant Professors within the faculty take some time to sit down with Kerry to get some pointers in how to build a successful research career. I hope Kerry doesn’t mind me “dobbing him in” (an Australanism) for this mentor duty!

Along these lines, I am currently in the process of meeting with all of our Assistant Professors in a series of one-on-one meetings. Our Assistant Profs are key to the long-term success of the faculty. Like young athletes working on their skills, it is important for our future professors to get their fundamentals right now so that long-term success will follow. I had some success during my time in Australia in research and publication and always remember when some members of my faculty told me how ‘lucky’ I was to get the grants I was getting, attract the students I was attracting, and publish the papers I was publishing. Of course, that ‘luck’ took many years of planning and preparation to achieve.

I am certainly enjoying my first summer back in Edmonton. The weather has been great, the days long and, until recently the mosquitoes tolerable. I get the distinct feeling, however that summer is winding down as people filter back onto campus over the next few weeks in anticipation of the students arriving and the academic year beginning. I love the ebb and flow of activity around campus life and can’t wait for the high water mark to arrive a few weeks from now. That’s it for this week. Thanks for clicking on me!

Cheers,

Kerry

Post #4: Days 17-21 (July 26-30, 2010)

2010-08-02T22:56:00.001-07:00

Dean’s Blog – First 100 Days

Post #4: Days 17-21 (July 26-30, 2010)

Week number four and it is QUIET around the place. I know it will get busier and I will wish for days like these, but right about now I am keen to get my teeth into things – of course someone out there will remind me how keen I was in July come September, so I won’t wish the summer away quite yet. Still, the fourth week on the job had its moments.

I had the honor of meeting with former Dean, Dr. Gerry Glassford to discuss the upcoming ceremonies for the 2010 University of Alberta Sports Wall of Fame inductees. Gerry was the Dean when I arrived in 1989 to start my PhD, and I am privileged to work with him in continuing the tradition of celebrating the athletes, teams and builders that have achieved excellence at the University and/or at the provincial, national and international level. As a result of the meeting, I happen to know this year’s inductees, but won’t pre-empt any announcements in this blog!

Mary Ann Rintoul spent one morning with me explaining the Play Around the World (PAW) program that she is now heading. The program was started by Jane Valentine to provide an international cross-cultural experience to UofA students in the area of physical activity and recreation. To date, the Faculty has placed students in Cambodia and Thailand, but there are many other potential locations that would provide great student experiences and extend the reach of the Faculty around the world.

Thursday and Friday were spent at the University of Calgary and the University of Lethbridge, respectively. Dean Wayne Giles played host to my wife Chris and I on Thursday. Wayne showed me around the UofC facilities in the afternoon and we spent a couple of hours discussing how the faculties might best collaborate for mutual benefit. The focus and development of ‘Campus Alberta’ provides us with the opportunity to build world-class areas of expertise in the province, but requires us to strategically assess how to best develop areas of excellence without duplication and redundancy in the two faculties. I look forward to more discussion and have previously stated that the focus of our scholarly competition cannot simply be within the province, but needs to have a worldview. Of course when it comes to CIS athletics, I am happy compete and defeat the Dinos at any opportunity!

Friday was spent with Drs. Ilsa Wong and Michelle Helstein, co-chairs of the Department of Kinesiology and Physical Education, who showed me around the new 1^st Choice Centre for Sport and Wellness at the University of Lethbridge. This was the first time I have seen the new facility, and it was amazing to see how the architects seamlessly joined the old existing structure with the new gyms, fitness centre, climbing wall and running track. This facility shares many of the challenges of blending the old and new that our new Physical Activity and Wellness (PAW) Centre will have as we bring it online in the next few years. Seeing what U of L has done certainly heightens my expectations around what will be in the first new building in our Faculty’s North Campus footprint since 1983. Functional planning is well underway for the new PAW centre, and the schematic plan, and tentatively a scale model will be available within the next few months to help this project become more tangible to faculty, staff and students of the entire University, so stay tuned!

A quick trip to Brandon and back to visit my Dad rounded off the long weekend, which means that next week is a short one. Please stay tuned for Blog #5 next Sunday.

Cheers,

Kerry

Post #3: Days 12-16 (July 19-23, 2010)

2010-07-26T00:03:00.000-07:00

Dean’s Blog – First 100 Days

Post #3: Days 12-16 (July 19-23, 2010)

Exploring the 3 R’s – Research, Reputation and Relevance

Week Three was a week that featured a number of meetings with people from outside of our faculty, principal to these was a meeting with Dr. Lorne Babiuk,, our Vice President of Research. Research plays a central role in University life, so I wanted to make sure that I met with Lorne as one of my first out-of-faculty interactions.

Research in our faculty is driven (and measured) by both research input and research output. Research input is the funding that drives the output. Funding is often vital, and is something that all academics get measured on, but it is always important to remember that input is only a step to the more valuable aspect of research, which is output. Ultimately we are assessed on the quality of our outputs, not simply the quantity of our inputs.

Essentially research is an entrepreneurial activity. The researcher has to ‘sell’ her or his idea to someone to gain funding to support the work to achieve the result. Like any business, simply a good idea is often not enough however, to convince someone to invest. The investors (i.e. grant bodies, government agencies, etc.) need to believe that there will be a good chance for a successful outcome. In research, this is a combination of a solid theoretical proposal and a track record of success to satisfy the funders that the researcher, or research team can deliver on the promise.

The development of research teams, track records and research collaborations are essential to the long term success of the individual and will be one of my principal areas of emphasis during my time as Dean. It takes many years to build the network and teams required to conduct top notch research, so we must put an emphasis on these activities – especially for our developing scholars, so that they (and the faculty) will reap the benefits it the future.

One of the things I love about research is that it is completed on the world stage, which is where we build our individual and collective reputations (my 2^nd “R” of this blog). The Faculty has, for many academic generations, featured world leading scholars in the areas of physical education, recreation and the sport and exercise sciences. As a much younger man I was once told by a senior mentor that all you have is your reputation, which I believe is still true today. The reputation of the faculty on the world stage is simply the reflection of the collective reputation of our faculty, staff and students.

The week before I started my position as Dean, I attended a meeting that was called to discuss how the academic and athletic arms of the faculty can better work together in terms of scholarly pursuits. It was an interesting discussion, and one where I felt I had much to say, but uncharacteristically, I remained an observer rather than an active participant. One point that stood out to me at that meeting was the discussion of relevance (my 3^rd “R” of this blog) that was initiated by Dr. John Spence, our Associate Dean of Research. John made a great point about the faculty’s need to remain relevant, which consolidated much of my thought around the challenges that the faculty has to face over the next few years. In a multi-billion dollar University, with over 20 faculties, some magnitudes larger than our own, we must remain relevant within the University through a combination of research and service. I believe that our ongoing relevance within the University will be secured by our national and international reputation that is built through scholarly activities of our faculty, staff and students (am I tying things together now?). Research is one of those reputation builders that we will focus on through ongoing discussion and initiatives.

Most of my thoughts about the 3 “R’s” have been developing for some time, but certainly the meeting with our VP research, and the discussions regarding the breadth and depth of the research taking place in this university helped consolidate those thoughts. The meeting with Dr. Babiuk was followed by a meeting with the Provost’s Advisory Council of Deans (PACD), and an individual meeting with Dr. Sylvie Stachenko, Dean of the School of Public Health. All of the external meetings of this past week were a great opportunity for me to get to know more people around the campus who will be key to our ongoing efforts to enhance our research, reputation and relevance – internationally and locally!

Cheers,

Kerry

Post #2: Days 7-11 (July 12-16, 2010)

2010-07-19T22:38:00.000-07:00

Dean’s Blog – First 100 Days

Post #2: Days 7-11 (July 12-16, 2010)

My second full week began with a meet and greet opportunity with Acting Athletic Director Vang Ioannides. Vang and I go back a long way, as he was in my undergraduate theory of coaching class here at UofA about 20 years ago. Vang displayed great patience with me as he explained the complex workings of our very successful athletic department. I also got the chance to meet a number of coaches who were around early that Monday morning. Coaching is a very interesting profession, as it is one where the perceived success of the coach is almost totally invested in the performance of others. I had a professional coaching career that spanned over 20 years, so I feel great affinity for those who have the passion and dedication to pursue a career in coaching. Certainly the highs of my coaching career have never been equalled in other aspects of my professional life. Of course, neither have the lows! I also met with Leah Hall Dorothy , our Director of Campus Recreation. Leah and her team deliver recreational opportunities to over 30,000 staff and students on both the North and South campus. With programs, clubs, participants and facilities equal to a small city, the recreation arm of the Faculty is a vital part of staff and student life on campus. I feel that integration of the faculty - combining academics, sport and recreation - is a true strength that makes our Faculty unique on campus.

Later that afternoon I met with Wanda Wetterberg and Sandra Pysklywyc from our Physical Education and Recreation Alumni Association (PERAA) who briefed me on the activities of the surprisingly new (to me) association. One of the real strengths of this faculty has been its ability to remain in contact with its alumni, something that until recently was done within the faculty by dedicated people such as Pat Bates. The formation of PERAA, with its mission to connect and engage alumni with fellow alumni, students and faculty is an exciting opportunity for past, present and future students to stay connected with, and create opportunities for all involved.

Last week also took me out to one of my old stomping grounds, the Percy Page Centre. I worked there for a number of years as a Research Associate and Research Coordinator for the then Alberta Centre for Well Being, which is now the Alberta Centre for Active Living, prior to moving ‘Down Under’. I was at Percy Page to visit with Barb Adamson, the Executive Director of Sport Medicine Council of Alberta (SMCA) as one of my last acts as President of the Queensland branch of Sports Medicine Australia (SMAQ) was to get Alberta and Queensland together to host a joint conference next January in Hawaii. Barb tells me that organisation is progressing well and a call for abstracts and a draft program will be out within a few weeks. I have long been involved with Sports Medicine Australia and hope that we can forge some strong international links by way of this joint conference (and perhaps escape a little of the Alberta winter). Building international networks of friends and colleagues is truly one of the great aspects of academic life, and one that we should not only pursue, but cherish. Few occupations give us the freedom and opportunities to see the world as does a scholarly career.

There were at least two other things that stood out in my mind about my second week on the job. The first was the tour of the Van Vliet Centre with John Barry and the architects who are involved in the new Physical Activity and Wellness (PAW) Centre. This promises to be an iconic building at one of the most visible locations on campus. The partnering of the faculty with the student unions – both graduate and undergraduate – to deliver a state-of-the-art recreation and wellness facility, due to open in 2012, also includes the Alberta Institute for Physical Activity and Health (AIPAH) and the Steadward Centre. The first new building in our main campus footprint since 1983, the PAW centre is an exciting project that will affect staff, students and faculty for decades to come.

The final item I felt I should mention was last week’s bar-b-que for the Steadward Centre. During a rainy lunch served in the Butterdome, I got the chance to meet and talk to Bob Steadward about the Centre, and about his busy schedule since retiring from the faculty. Bob has left a great legacy in the Steadward Centre, one that I hope will continue to grow to have an international influence on adapted physical activity through research and scholarly activity in physical activity and sport programs for children, youth and adults with disabilities.

These were some of the highlights for week two in the job. I was also very (very) pleased to have our furniture finally arrive from Australia. After almost a month of ‘camping’ out in our house (thanks to John Spence for the loan of four camp chairs), it was fantastic to get off the air mattress on the floor and back into our bed. Moving internationally is certainly a challenge. Ever the optimist, I seem to have forgotten how much of a challenge over the passing of the last 13+ years.

Cheers,

Kerry

Post #1: Days 1 - 6 (July 1 - 9, 2010)

2010-07-18T23:07:00.000-07:00

Dean’s Blog – First 100 Days

Days 1-6 (July 1-9, 2010)

I’m Kerry Mummery and I have now been the Dean of the Faculty of Physical Education and Recreation at the University of Alberta for six (working) days. I thought I’d blog to introduce myself to you – as well as provide some insight into what I am up to in the first 100 (working) days on the job.

So why 100 days? There does seem to be a focus on the first 100 days in both business and politics, and since the job of Dean is a good dose of both, it seems like a reasonable timeframe to introduce readers to who I am and what I do. But 100 days does not a Dean make. Historian David Greenberg uses a sporting analogy to argue that, at least the American focus on the first 100 days of a presidency can be ‘folly’, when he says:

"New presidents tend to be clueless about governing. Even running a large state can't prepare them for the responsibilities, attention or demands to act quickly -- just as they need to find their footing. (FDR's term hardly defined his legacy; many of his greatest achievements came later.) Sizing up presidents based on their hundred days is like judging a rookie from his first cuts in spring training."

So, please offer me some slack as I take my first cuts at the deanship. I am excited to have the opportunity to work with the Faculty and look forward to extending the reputation of the Faculty over my time in the post.

My wife, Chris and I are pleased to be back in Edmonton, although we had all but decided that we had settled permanently in Australia, in a city, university, jobs and climate we liked very much. But a call from a recruiting company about the deanship at U of A found me taking some of my own advice, which I commonly gave to my graduate students and post-docs, which was “the best time to look for a job is when you don’t really want one”. That way one is sure to consider something only if it is truly a great opportunity. So this is the premise that brought us back. U of A is a great opportunity to do great things – to work with eminent academics at an institution that aims to be world class; to be involved with one of Canada’s premier CIS sport programs; and to work with a leading university recreation program - all in one faculty.

Achieving excellence in all aspects of higher education in today’s economy is a challenge, but I have been ‘fortunate’ to work in the Australian tertiary education system which has been underfunded for many years now. This experience has shown me that it is certainly possible to achieve great things, but it does require commitment and dedication by all involved. Of course this is nothing new, since these are two common elements of greatness in all aspects of life, including sport and academics.

Being selected as Dean is one of the most exciting things that has ever happened to me, and I couldn’t wait to get started! Apparently I wasn’t the only one. I had numerous meetings before formally starting – I attended the “Free2BeMe” breakfast in support of the Steadward Centre for Personal and Physical Achievement, met with the steering committee for the new Physical Activity and Wellness (PAW) building on campus, attended the Chancellor’s Cup golf tournament, gave a presentation to the recreation division of the Alberta Sport, Recreation, Parks and Wildlife (ASRPW) Foundation about my ‘Australian’ experience in increasing health-related physical activity at the community level, attended a Legacy Board Foundation meeting, which supports our Canadian Athletics Coaching Centre, met with the organizers of the Little Big Run - and even attended a house concert organized by Bill Humby (the Gordie Tentrees Band). All in all this was a great introduction to at least some of what goes on in the Faculty – and it all happened before I started on the first of July, which suitably was a holiday.

The first six of my first 100 days have been spent getting up to speed on the workings of the Faulty, meeting and greeting people around campus and in Edmonton, and setting up my blog. Please post questions and I’ll do my best to respond. All I ask is that you keep them legitimate and collegial.

Cheers

Kerry