Job Description / Duties

The Beaver College of Health Sciences (BCHS) at Appalachian State University seeks nominations and applications for a strong, innovative, and experienced leader for the position of Chairperson of the Department of Recreation Management and Physical Education (RMPE). The Department boasts outstanding faculty and programs, as well as committed alumni and community partners. The Department’s component programs are highly regarded and its faculty have exemplary reputations in their respective fields. The Department also delivers a wide array of physical education activity courses taken by students across the entire university and thus has a strong presence on campus.

The Chair of RMPE serves as the chief representative of the department and reports directly to the Dean of the BCHS. The primary duties of this position are to oversee daily operations within the department and guide progress toward achieving teaching, research, and service goals in keeping with the mission of the department, college, and university. In this capacity, the chair will mentor junior faculty in developing scholarship and teaching, build successful collaborations within the department and the college, and promote the department at the university, state, and national levels. Additional responsibilities include but are not limited to:

- ensuring equitable distribution of faculty workload and providing faculty and staff with annual performance evaluations;
- leading and promoting a culture of scholarly excellence within the department to ensure that department faculty has the support they need to conduct innovative research and creative activity;
- promoting a culture of inclusive excellence within the department and faculty that supports inter-professional education to meet the needs of diverse populations;
- working together with the faculty, associate deans, and others to continuously improve the programs’ curriculum;
- articulating the department’s goals and strengths, both internally and externally, while fostering a climate that encourages engagement, participation, and collegiality;
- informing department faculty of the dean’s and other administrators’ perspectives and actions that may affect the department;
- supporting experiential classroom learning, as well as teaching enhancement opportunities for faculty.

Qualifications / Required Skills

Required qualifications for this position include:

- an earned doctorate in recreation management, health/physical education, or a related field;
- academic credentials that merit appointment and tenure at the rank of associate or full professor in the Department of RMPE;
- prior leadership experience;
- demonstrated commitment to inclusive excellence;
- successful record of teaching and scholarship;
- excellent communication and interpersonal skills; and,
- professional demeanor and ability to work effectively with various constituencies, including students and their families, faculty, staff, administrators, and external partners.

The Department especially seeks candidates with evidence of a collaborative leadership style that embraces shared governance and builds a culture of trust among faculty, staff, students, and administrators across the university; demonstrated success in supporting faculty in securing external funding; and successful experience in strategic planning and program development.

Additional Information

The Department of Recreation Management and Physical Education prepares highly qualified recreation management, health, physical education, and coaching professionals The Recreation Management (RM) program has been accredited by the Council on Accreditation for Parks, Recreation, Tourism and Related Professions (COAPRT) since 1996. It prepares students for careers in outdoor recreation management, park management, campus and university recreation, experiential education, travel and tourism management, club and camp management, and resort recreation.

The Physical Education program, established in 1921, merged with Health Education to create a dual certification degree in Health and Physical Education (HPE). The HPE major promotes the development of highly qualified professionals prepared to advance the fitness, psychomotor, cognitive, and affective learning of school-aged children. It is accredited at the unit level through the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE). It has approval from the State of North Carolina Department of Public Instruction.

The program has an added focus on sports science and coaching and offers a minor, second academic concentration, and certificate in this area. HPE recently added a Graduate Certificate Program, which leads to a professional license for those with residency licenses in the state of North Carolina who are currently teaching health or physical education.

Salary: Salary is competitive and commensurate with qualifications and experience.

Contact Information

Search Chair Name: Jill Juris
Search Chair Email: jurisjj@appstate.edu
Link to job posting: https://appstate.peopleadmin.com/postings/43309

Employer Profile

Appalachian State University, in North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains, prepares students to lead purposeful lives as global citizens who understand and engage their responsibilities in creating a sustainable future for all. The transformational Appalachian experience promotes a spirit of inclusion that brings people together in inspiring ways to acquire and create knowledge, to grow holistically, to act with passion and determination, and embrace diversity and difference. As one of 17 campuses in the University of North Carolina system, Appalachian enrolls more than 20,000 students, has a low student-to-faculty ratio and offers more than 150 undergraduate and graduate majors.