August 2011 - Parks & Recreation - 12

E D ITO R'S LETTER

Back to School

t its Core, eduCation addresses the grandest oF Questions -who we are

and where we come from. Deal with those questions and the rest are course
offerings. And you also have a better idea of where you are going. Our cover story this month began with basic questions of where the field of parks and recreation education is going, since it appears the core of its degree programs is changing.
More and more, the traditional parks and recreation curriculum is being nibbled (some would say
gobbled) by more alluring degree programs, such
as sports management and tourism studies. Wondering how such changes might affect the field of
parks and recreation, Managing Editor Beth Beard
interviewed many practitioners and educators. Beth
quickly found out how super charged this subject is.
There's no going forward, she learned, without an understanding of from where the field originally came.
Several educators with excellent sense of longrange perspective reminded us that parks and recreation is rooted in public health-getting urban
dwellers out of the miasma of congested 19th century
housing into the fresh air of green spaces where they
could refresh and, by extension, re-create. There was
no limiting label of parks and recreation at the time,
much less an eponymous sit-com. These roots are
very much alive today, and in many instances, stronger than ever. But as we get wrapped up in labels and
terminology, it gets too easy to lose sight of our mission. It doesn't help when prospective students get
seduced by programs and courses with the moniker
" sports " or " tourism " attached to them. Sure, university budget economics influence the priorities of curriculum creation. All of academia is hunkered down
for the moment, Dennis Howard of the University of

Oregon business school tells us.
As several educators point out, there's a finite
number of professional and collegiate sports management jobs to be had by their graduates, and it's
not all that large-12,000 versus 200,000 full-time
parks and recreation jobs. As for the hospitality
jobs, most begin with the front desks of hotels, not
the bridges of cruise ships. Although budget cuts
have inhibited the growth of positions in the municipal sector of parks and recreation, the sheer number
of opportunities still makes park agencies a better
employment bet for new graduates, no matter how
stodgy they may view government work. The challenge will be for professionals in their community relations and educators in their role of researchers to
emphasize the many essential services parks and
recreation provide communities. Toward this end,
it's not difficult to predict the descriptor " parks and
recreation " will be coming under scrutiny. As John
Crompton of Texas A&M tells Beth for this article, his
department is called Recreation, Parks & Tourism,
but he asks his dean to think of it as Youth Development, Environmental Sustainability & Community
Development, and Economic Development. The dean
understood it fully, and Professor Crompton now has
another P&R faculty position despite cuts elsewhere.
That's a lesson with universal value for all of us.

Philip hayward
editor

Parks & Recreation

AUGUST 2011

www.NRPA .ORG

August 2011 - Parks & Recreation

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