July 2014 - Parks & Recreation - 43

istence to the lawmakers and bureaucrats who hold the purse strings.
It takes a well-rounded, competent
and confident individual to tackle the
ever-widening scope of responsibility
in the park and recreation field, and
therefore, a comprehensive, malleable and quick-responding educational system to train them. The sticking
point these days, according to several
practitioners and academics interviewed for this article, is how best to
address the educational and experiential needs of the up-and-coming park
and recreation professional. And,
additionally, what happens if we allow the market - or recalcitrant educators who are loathe to adjust their
subject matter to fit today's world -
to drive course offerings, rather than
what might be most important for
young people to find success?
Getting at the Core
The journey begins freshman year.
" [Students] need to get to a core
understanding [of the field] on the
undergraduate level, " says Christian
Moore, director at Cathedral Oaks
Worship and Retreat Center in Weimar, Texas, and NRPA's 2013-2014
Young Professionals Network chair.
" This includes the basics, the foundation of the profession, and for the
most part we have that. " Accredited
collegiate programs typically require
students to take a certain number of
core credits, no matter the larger discipline. These might include written
communication, social and behavioral science, literature and quantitative
reasoning. " You have so many courses that are required no matter the major, so [students] get a good breadth
of knowledge in general, " says
Brooke Burk, Ph.D., assistant professor at SUNY-Cortland's Department
of Recreation, Parks and Leisure Services. " But to prepare [students] for
a specific area, they need coursework

that is tailored. A lot of our programs
do a really great job making sure students have this well-rounded experience, then they can major in fields
that are of most interest to them. "
And that's exactly what seems to
be happening. Students who find
their way to a park and recreation
major - many of whom are socalled " discovery majors, " starting
their college career in different dis-

tion programs are doing OK - they
are stable - but graduate programs
focused on leisure studies are shrinking. I wonder what will hold the field
together down the road. "
When conducting interviews for
the Parks and Recreation Department in Parma, New York, Director
Tom Venniro weighs education versus experience very carefully. " We
just hired a recreation supervisor in

It takes a well-rounded, competent and confident
individual to tackle the ever-widening scope of
responsibility in the park and recreation field.
ciplines before learning of park and
recreation degree programs - often
become enamored of one specialty
or another and devote the majority
of their studies to that area. Popular programs of late include sports
management, special events, and
even tourism or hospitality. " There's
always a core general recreation education that goes on in those [majors], but the more you begin to specialize in a track within your degree
program, the more deficiency you're
going to find or feel if you can't find
that niche job, " Moore says.
Dan Dustin, Ph.D., professor at the
University of Utah's Department of
Parks, Recreation and Tourism, characterizes the educational landscape
of parks and recreation as " fragmented, " and in light of this, senses more
changes to come. " The field is no
longer centered on public parks and
recreation per se, " he says. " Rather,
there is a growing proliferation of
subspecializations.... Students tend
to identify with their subspecializations and not the general field of
parks and recreation. My sense is that
undergraduate professional prepara-

April of 2014 - we had more than 30
applicants, and we brought in about
10 for interviews, " he says. " Looking
at the applications, the main contributing factor was experience - anything related to [the park and recreation field] is what I wanted to see. I
knew I wanted someone who could
come in and do the job. " Venniro did
see a number of applicants with park
and recreation majors or minors,
but, " the person we hired worked for
five years part-time at another local
recreation department. That experience, to me, set her apart already
in that you really can't get that just
from school. She was a ready fit to
go on and succeed in the profession.
That's not to say the others weren't
also capable of success, but you had
the sense they needed a little more
experience, " he says.
Regardless of what particular job
for which a graduate might be angling, Ashcraft says demonstrating
a range of talents and abilities is of
paramount importance. Accordingly,
the best university programs should
recognize this necessity by emphasizing core competencies and nimbly

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July 2014 - Parks & Recreation

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of July 2014 - Parks & Recreation

July 2014 - Parks & Recreation - 1
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