The ASEP Organization
is a Paradigm Shift
Tommy Boone
Professor
and Chair
Director,
Exercise Physiology Laboratories
Department
of Exercise Physiology
The College
of St. Scholastica
Duluth, MN
“The
paradigm pioneer must have coverage as well as intuition.” -- Joel
Arthur Barker [1]
WHEN I BEGAN TALKING about exercise
physiologists needing their own professional organization in 1994, many of
my colleagues asked why I would waste my time. They could not understand
that my thinking was driven by a switch in paradigms. Even today, when
I speak about the American Society of Exercise Physiologists (ASEP), some
of my students do not understand the importance of anticipating a “paradigm
shift.”
Let me share with
you a brief story that began in 1970 and continues today. It illustrates
why we need to predict the needs of the public, to organize ourselves with
standards of practice to meet those needs, and to produce the professional
credibility to support the standards. The story begins when I was a
doctorate student at Florida State University. Anyone who wanted to
be an exercise physiologist needed a doctorate degree, but I didn’t know
that then. My objective was simple: I wanted the doctorate degree
so I could teach college level courses and not just physical activities as
I had done for several years at the University of Florida and Northeast Louisiana
State University.
After finishing
the doctorate degree, exercise physiology was an exciting opportunity for
me. Instantly, I valued the emphasis placed on the collection of data
and the publication of research findings. This interest continues today.
Like most exercise physiologists, I dream of publishing good research and,
if possible, influencing how people think about a particular topic.
This isn’t uncommon by any means. No matter who you are or what department
you teach in, publishing is important. This is why many individuals
choose to work in the academic setting.
But, let me ask
a question: “If exercise physiologists understand the complexity of
their knowledge base, then of what value is it if the public does not understand
its application?” [2, p. 32] The body of knowledge itself is useless
if members of the profession cannot exploit it to earn a living. The
key is in learning how to capture the large stores of knowledge and how to
market it. So, what would we have done different had we anticipated
our importance in the public sector? Would we have continued to place
emphasis on increasingly more research or would we have emphasized ethical
issues, standards of practice, and overall professional development?
What I am trying
to point out is that life as a college teacher is more than research, however
important for tenure and/or promotion. And, after years of teaching
at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, at the University of Southern
Mississippi, and now at the College of St. Scholastica, I know that what
I thought was exercise physiology has always been an unfortunate definition.
As an example, “Exercise physiology is the study of how our bodies’ structures
and functions are altered when we are exposed to acute and chronic bouts of
exercise.” [3, p. 4] It should be obvious that the definition is self-limiting.
It cannot define the profession of exercise physiology. Also, it has
serious limitations in other areas, especially the implications that translate
to the consumer.
By comparison,
look at the ASEP definition of exercise physiology [4]. "…the identification
of physiological mechanisms underlying physical activity, the comprehensive
delivery of treatment services concerned with the analysis, improvement,
and maintenance of health and fitness, rehabilitation of heart disease and
other chronic diseases and/or disabilities, and the professional guidance
and counsel of athletes and others interested in athletics, sports training,
and human adaptability to acute and chronic exercise.” Implied in this
definition is the comprehensive application of professional services within
the context of the public sector.
Yet by the early
1990s many of our students from undergraduate programs in kinesiology, exercise
science, or one of a dozen other academic titles expressed dissatisfaction
with jobs in the public sector. Without knowing the full impact of
what we were doing, people like myself and others earned the doctorate degree
and settled in our college offices to teach exercise physiology courses.
Then, because it appeared to be the right thing to do, we encouraged our students
to think of themselves as exercise physiologists. In retrospect, it
is obvious that we failed because we did not anticipate either the inappropriateness
of what we were doing or the application of exercise physiology in the future.
Just think how exercise physiology would be different today if only we had
taken the time to understand the true meaning of a professional organization.
Clearly, it is indispensable to the advancement of the profession.
In reality, though,
we encouraged the title “exercise specialist” or other similar titles for
two reasons: First, the doctorate-prepared exercise physiologist felt
that a person could not be an exercise physiologist without the “doctorate”
degree. Second, without planning more specifically for our own future
as professionals, our basic instinct was to develop certifications that would
encourage the public to think of our students as credible clinical practitioners.
Our thinking was strongly associated with graduate work at the master’s level.
Many academic exercise physiologists simply didn’t care about the undergraduate
education of our students. We knew the programs across the United States
were little more than the old style of physical education with new titles,
but no one was willing to do anything about it.
In other words,
the primary mistake in our thinking was the failure to link, as other healthcare
professionals have done, a professional title with an academic degree.
Now, 30+ years later, it is an enormous stretch to consider the exercise
science concentration the equivalent of an academic degree or a professional
title. If someone said to you, “Certainly, the academic coursework
is different today from 30 years ago?” you would have to say, “No, not really.”
The problem is that it is fundamentally the same.
Had we anticipated
what it should have been, exercise science would not exist today. Instead,
with straight thinking and good common sense, the majority of our undergraduate
students would be graduating with an academic degree in exercise physiology!
This isn’t the case, however. Not until the founding of ASEP has there
been the opportunity to think differently. ASEP has set the stage for
a paradigm shift in exercise physiology. Members of the Board have
changed the basic way of thinking about exercise physiologists. It
is no longer acceptable that only those in the academy have the right to
the exercise physiology title. And so, in just over five years, the
ASEP organization has made it (meaning, its leadership has significantly influenced
what is exercise physiology and who is an exercise physiologist) and, in
fact, has changed the face of exercise physiology forever.
“Taking
responsibility for professionalism is good thinking. It is a statement
of accountability for one’s actions whereby a person says: It’s my
job to help out. The development of a profession is the responsibility
of every member.” [5]
The irony of this story for those
who teach in the academy, for those who believe that exercise physiology
is driven only by research, and for those who define the exercise physiologist
by the doctorate degree is that the situation we find ourselves in today was
totally avoidable if only the college professors had known how to think about
their own future. If only we had understood the application of exercise
physiology as healthcare practitioners, we would have been in a better position
to anticipate the future [1]. The fact is, many academic exercise physiologists
are still thinking as if they are living in the 80s. And yet, it is
the future that should drive our thinking about what we are yet-to-become.
The exercise physiology
paradigm [6] that has driven the past decades of academic exercise physiology
has understandably created a shared set of values. It is logical and
unfortunate that these values define and guide the behavior of the academy.
The values per se fail to explain “what is exercise physiology” to non-doctorate
exercise physiologists. As a result, there are two different groups
of professionals with different values and significantly different points
of view. Their code of ethics, rules of applying exercise physiology,
and standards of practice are different from each other. Those who belong
to ASEP embrace the view that the doctorate degree is not required to be
an exercise physiologist.
It is in this
sense that exercise physiology is a paradigm (a set of rules) that has recently
undergone a paradigm shift (a new set of rules) [1]. Everything we
thought was true about exercise physiology has undergone acute change.
The old rules of just doctorate-prepared exercise physiologists who taught
in college and did research constitute one way, but not the only way.
The paradigm shifters (also called paradigm pioneers by J.A. Barker, Paradigms,
1, p. 41) from within the ASEP organization have created a new way to view
exercise physiology. The result is a paradigm shift that has altered
the fundamental rules of the game to solve problems that the old paradigm
has not solved. Naturally, members of the old paradigm are not that
happy with the ASEP paradigm pioneers.
“New
paradigms put everyone practicing the old paradigm at great risk. The
higher one’s position, the greater the risk. The better you are at your paradigm,
the more you have invested in it, the more you have to lose by changing paradigms.”
-- Joel Arthur Barker [1]
The ASEP organization, its vision,
and its underlying philosophy perspective is the new paradigm. ASEP
is not just another fitness organization, but one built and designed by exercise
physiologists on behalf of their students. It is, therefore, reasonable
for a period of time that members of the old paradigm will have difficulty
understanding the ASEP intentions and, therefore, will resist the paradigm
shift. The effect is predictable with statements like:
“ASEP…it
will never make it.”
“Responsible
exercise physiologists would never join ASEP.”
“There is
no chance that ASEP will survive.”
“The ASEP
Board of Directors made a huge mistake.”
“There is
no reason to have another certification.”
Barker [1] refers to these statements
as the Paradigm Effect. Meaning, members of the old paradigm cannot
get past their frame of reference for exercise physiology. After all,
they are amazed that anyone would become part of the new paradigm. Of
course, what they fail to understand is that nothing is impossible with breakthrough
thinking [7] or out-of-the-box thinking [8], especially when such thinking
is intuitively correct.
The next decade
or two are important. The key challenge is not to resist the paradigm
shift, but to become part of it. Put aside the assumed certainties
of the old paradigm and get involved in the ASEP organization. Exercise
physiologists must agree on the importance of doing something to benefit
students. My guess is this shared set of beliefs will change everything
about exercise physiology, including how academic exercise physiologists
think about themselves. We are already well into the new paradigm.
It is altering the way we interpret who we are and what we do. The
ASEP vision [9] is revolutionizing our concepts of an exercise physiology
education. This story is familiar to everyone in the healthcare professionals,
especially the efforts to increase credibility with accreditation.
It is retold here on behalf of all exercise physiologists who embrace ASEP
as the transformation force of their new reality.
References
1. Barker, J.A.
(1992). Paradigms: The Business of Discovering the Future. HarperCollins
Publishers.
2. Boone,
T. (2000). Professional Development of Exercise Physiology. Lewiston,
NY: The Edwin Mellen Press, Ltd.
3. Wilmore,
J.H. & Costill, D.L. (1994). Physiology of Sport and Exercise. Champaign,
IL: Human Kinetics.
4. American
Society of Exercise Physiologists. (2003). ASEP Board of Certification Standards
of Professional Practice. [online]. http://www.css.edu/ASEP/StandardsofProfessionalPractice.html
5. Boone,
T. (2001). Taking Responsibility for Professionalism. Professionalization
of Exercise Physiology-online. Vol 4 No 2 February [online]. http://www.asep.org/asep/asep/TakingRESPONSIBILITY.html
6. Boone,
T. (2002). A New Academic Paradigm for Exercise Physiology Teachers. Professionalization
of Exercise Physiology-online. Vol 5 No 9 September [online]. http://www.asep.org/asep/asep/TeachingWithINTEGRITY.html
7. Boone,
T. (2002). Breakthrough Thinking in Exercise Physiology. Professionalization
of Exercise Physiology-online. Vol 5 No 7 July [online]. http://www.asep.org/asep/asep/BreakthroughThinking.html
8.
Boone,
T. (2002). Exercise Physiology of the Future: Thinking Out of the Box.
Professionalization
of Exercise Physiology-online. Vol 5 No 11 November [online].
http://www.asep.org/asep/asep/ThinkingOutsideTheBoxExercisePhysiology.html
9. American
Society of Exercise Physiologists. (2003). ASEP Vision. [online]. http://www.asep.org/asep/asep/vision.htm