Manhattan University’s Department of Kinesiology announces new majors. MANHATTAN.EDU / COURTESY
Leyla J Mercado, Arts and Entertainment Editor
Manhattan University’s Department of Kinesiology has announced new majors including health science alongside the revised major of healthcare administration. These majors have been created in the pursuit of providing students with a wide range of educational choices regarding their future health profession.
Since 1935, the department has had a physical education major, and in the 1970s, a drop of interest in the major ignited the creation of an exercise science major. Over the past few years, the department has decided to introduce the major of public health and now is adding health science and revising health administration, making it an undergraduate major beginning in fall 2025.
Shawn Ladda, professor and department chairperson of kinesiology, spoke to The Quadrangle about the public health major and the gateway it’s provided into the department’s new majors.
“Medical schools, as well as other health professions, are looking for a variety of majors,” Ladda said. “A few years ago we started the public health major, so we’ve had that in the department for a number of years. That allows a student to pursue health professions … With the recent pandemic, I think people understand more the importance of public health and having infrastructures that support all people with a variety of health issues with the environment [and] different disparities with health care, as there’s a lot of different health issues.”
Ladda further discussed what ignited the decision in implementing the new majors of health science and health administration, and how she intends to guide students through deciding on their major of choice.
“We added a major called health science, a new major in our department that gives students another choice in terms of a major they could go into the health professions,” Ladda said. “We also just approved another undergraduate major within the department, that’s healthcare administration. So one could major in exercise science, public health, health science [and] healthcare administration. One might ask, why would you want one major over the other? How I advise prospective students is really to look at each major and look at the classes required for each, to then decide, what classes sound more interesting to me.”
Marcy Kelly, Ph.D, dean of the Kakos School of Arts and Sciences, elaborated on how she sees these additional majors complementing the department’s existing programs.
“I think it perfectly aligns with the programs that they [the kinesiology department] currently offer,” Kelly said. “We’ve restructured the curriculum or the courses into this new curriculum to highlight all of the sources that would be required to prepare a student for postgraduate work in nursing, occupational therapy, physician assistant, or any health related program. What’s really cool about health science and healthcare administration is that we purposely embedded in both of them the public health minor, so students would not only receive their BS (Bachelors of Science) in either one of them, but also the minor in public health.”
Kelly further discussed what she hopes students take away from this program by the time they graduate.
“I just hope that they’re well informed, scientifically literate,” Kelly said. “This semester has been really interesting because of the political landscape that we’re experiencing and the, I’ll say, attack on science. As somebody who works with infectious disease, with all of this stuff going on with vaccines, I think it’s really, really, really important that we educate our future healthcare professionals to be able to communicate to the public some important information that seems to have been politicized that shouldn’t be, and really be able to share accurate correct information to keep everybody healthy.”
These new changes to MU’s kinesiology department are designed to benefit the student body as they continue to explore their academic and professional interests. These new opportunities and career paths are meant to introduce more engaged and hands-on learning within their prospective fields of science.
Sean Mannion, senior exercise science major on a pre physical therapy track, elaborated on how impactful this change to the department would be for students.
“I think it’s good,” Mannion said. “It’s always better to have more than less, and it gives students more opportunities. I know that as someone like me, who switched from civil engineering to pre physical therapy and exercise science, I thought it was exactly what I needed and exactly what I wanted…I feel like with less, you restrict people to certain things but with more, you allow them to open up and go down new avenues.”
Mannion also explained the importance of these new majors when it comes to current and future kinesiology students at MU.
“I think it would be a good foundation because college is hard,” Mannion said. “You don’t really know what you want to do, so if you’re able to find these new avenues that allow you to build yourself up to be the best person you can and a job that you’ll enjoy, I feel like it would be beneficial … Whenever you allow people to express themselves, it’s always going to be for the better.”