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About the Author
Stephen Joel Trachtenberg served for 30 years as a university president. He is now president emeritus and university professor at the George Washington University, where he teaches courses on the university presidency in America. He is also an adviser to Korn/Ferry International, where he is helping to find the next generation of university leadership. In June 2008 Simon and Schuster will release his new book Big Man on Campus: A University President Speaks Out On Higher Education. B.A. Columbia, M.P.A. Harvard, J.D. Yale. Fifteen honorary degrees. A swell guy. But not much of a dancer.He will blog about issues torn from the headlines dealing with higher education. Contemporary topics of pressing, current concern. And some serious matters too.
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L'Chaim -- to Life
I’ve always liked obituaries. They appeal to the undergraduate history major that lies deep within me. Usually brief, they encapsulate not only the story of the deceased life, but also if you read them with a third eye tell something of the years during which the person lived. There are references to wars, businesses, and professional events, to relatives and universities — all very interesting. I read a book the other day called, Farewell, God’s Speed a collection of excellent eulogies, edited by Cyrus Copeland.
And then this morning, my wife brought me a clipping from The New York Times, the headline of which is, “Vic Hershkowitz, Dominant Handball Star, dies at 89.”
Hershkowitz, a New York City fireman, was a legend when I was a boy. He played handball in Brooklyn playgrounds where he took on all comers and beat them year after year. He had palms of leather and a killer shot. I think I actually saw him once in a competition played someplace between Brighton Beach and Coney Island. My distinguished predecessor as president of GW, Lloyd Elliot, has played handball as far back as anybody on campus can remember. He still does. I saw him the other day speaking at a funeral of a colleague of ours. He looked great. Dr. Elliot was 70 when he retired. I served almost 20 years. So judging by Hershkowitz and Elliot, handball may be the elixir of life.
I picked up a book last week with an intriguing title, The Thing About Life Is That One Day You’ll Be Dead, by David Shields. It came to mind as I was writing this post, that book and a New York Times article, “Fit, not Frail: Exercise as a Tonic for Aging.” In his volume, Shields writes about his father, an exercise enthusiast who lived a long and healthy life, apparently accompanied by an enviable libido. The Times piece reminds us that every hour of every day 330 Americans turn 60. And by the year 2030 20 percent of us will be over 65. I myself am looking forward to that. Now that I’m 70, it will be fun to have some company who I can talk to — people who actually remember radio, for example, before it was XM.
We are bombarded with advice, telling us that if we expect to live long and healthy lives, we can’t be couch potatoes. But unfortunately, too little instruction on this important subject is given serious attention as part of the university education. Spectator events get more than their fair share — but life sports like tennis, swimming, walking and racquetball, are too often at the margin. We think it is imperative if our students are to have sound minds that they be familiar with the canon of literature, know something about math and the sciences, and study the arts. But we tend to point our academic noses up when the subject of a sound body, physical fitness, exercise sciences, and such is raised. Institutions do construct athletic facilities and do offer some outreach but too often they assume that if you build them they will come. Well, they do — but more to watch, not necessarily to do. Or do right. We really owe our students even more than we provide.
Years ago, when distribution requirements were mandated at many colleges, courses in physical education were part of the curriculum that had to be fulfilled. At Brooklyn College in the 1960s, three classes were required; at Columbia, every student had to take PE and know how to swim. When universities modified these requirements, physical education became an option (often with no credit) — and today is rarely picked up.
I run into recent graduates from time to time about town, in movies, theaters, restaurants, and hotels and I’m frequently struck by how they have let themselves go. They are 25 or 30 years old but look more than that and are carrying too many extra pounds, the result of stress and hard work, long hours, and bad habits. In my mind’s eye I can see them as they were, arriving as freshmen, not only full of promise but also fit and beautiful. How do we get them to stay that way?
I wonder if we aren’t guilty of academic neglect. We are preparing our students for lives, full and complete. We obviously want them to be able to have personal lives filled with the best that learning offers. We want them to be able to make a contribution to society and earn a living in the process, also participating in the civic and social affairs around them. We want them to be members of families capable of loving and being loved. And, surely we want them to live healthy lives. What do we need to do as teachers and role models to fully inform them in a manner responsive to this multiple agenda?
Posted at 12:54:05 PM on June 28, 2008 | All postings by Stephen Joel TrachtenbergComments
Commenting is closed for this article.
Great column, as usual, but please, quickly, correct ‘cannon’ to its proper spelling, ‘canon’…
— molly · Jun 29, 05:45 PM · #
Corrected. Thanks, Molly.
— Alex at Brainstorm · Jun 29, 09:42 PM · #
Oh, for the good ol’ days when physical education was a part of education on all levels, when dancing and roller skating were what kids did on the weekends, and when not every game HAD to have a winner. But life moves us on, not necessarily forward, just on.
Okay, that’s enough of that. Now, I have a question. Why do we ask educational institutions to be an answer to all of our culture’s woes? What happened to family, church, and neighborhoods? Maybe the answer is really there.
— Lynn · Jul 1, 05:42 AM · #
50 some physicians at the Mayo clinic bought over priced high rise desks to put over walking machines and now do their daily deskwork while exercising—adding on average 1400 calories of work per day that they did not get sitting at regular desks. I could not afford their equipment (I am not a physician) so I bought a 42$ hostital desk, put it on upsidedown planters for extra height and slipped a half recumbent exercise bike (also cheap, Tunturi 530F) under it. This happened a year ago, and I have averaged 2200 extra calories consumed 4 days each week by doing 4 hours+ of usual typing while moving my legs in unambitious slovenly ways. Nice. I cannot say my waiste line has benefitted, but I can say that I eat lots more delicious foods without gaining weight—than I used to!!! I may not live longer but happier.
My dream and a sure CNN story is to put an entire class of mine on this arrangement and get 400 calories per student per hour more exercise for each class done in that facility. Nice. Know any nutty foundations!!!! Fitness grant division?!!!!
— Richard Tabor Greene · Jul 1, 07:31 AM · #
At least the new hires are coming in with ten publications, with forty more on the drawing board as their life’s plan.
How do we get them to shut the books, open the door and go for a walk?
How do I get myself to do that?
— Landrum Kelly · Jul 1, 07:54 AM · #
I was sitting here trying to decide if I should go to a meeting with my president, or run—-I better run!
— Larry Gould · Jul 1, 07:55 AM · #
Steve,
Thanks for this timely piece. Having recently joined a gym as part of my employer’s wellness benefit, I was happy to discover that Barack Obama is a fellow sweat-breaker a few machines over.
But you’re still having punctuation issues. You wrote: “I read a book the other day called, Farewell, God’s Speed a collection of excellent eulogies, edited by Cyrus Copeland.” How about putting the comma after “Speed”?
— Peter · Jul 1, 08:38 AM · #
Play handball!
— tom conley · Jul 1, 09:50 AM · #
In considering university environments and their potential to contribute to the physical fitness of students and others, I would argue the opportunities are much greater today than 50 years ago when I was an undergraduate. Most universities now have recreation centers, which have a variety of cardio machines, weights, pools, etc and are used by both females and males. As an undergraduate my choices tended to be to go to a gym to play basketball or handball. Females weren’t present. Likewise, I had few or no choices in the dorm dining hall. Males were required to take ROTC as freshman and sophomores at my land grant university. The little marching we did hardly contributed to my fitness then and did nothing to prepare me for a life of fitness. However, I doubt the PE required PE courses for females did much for them aerobically. Bottom line: the opportunities for fitness at most universities far surpass those available in the past.
PS. I, too, find obits interesting. There seems to be a high frequency of males in their late 60s and 70s.
— GDS · Jul 1, 10:12 AM · #
I just learned about the phenomenon of “Summer Gym.” Apparently Junior and Senior High Schools are cutting PE from the regular curriculum and making students take classes during the summer. They’re doing fun stuff like roller skating and bowling. That’s great, but exercise is like brushing your teeth. You can’t save it all up for the end of the year and have it be truly effective.
Now, I hated PE, but that was largely because PE for us was about competition, especially the god-awful Presidential Physical Fitness evaluation, whose primary purpose seems to have been to rank us all for Dodge Ball Team selection. The excellent concept of getting us out into the open air on a regular basis was perverted by routine humiliation.
I think most people know that healthy exercise habits make for clearer thinking. Why has no one yet considered regular enjoyable physical activity as an essential part of any education?
— Bible Spice · Jul 1, 11:31 AM · #
Don’t forget this as well: evidence from studies done by John J. Ratey and others has shown a strong correlation between physical exercise and increased cognitive ability. So exercise not only helps you live longer, but it makes you smarter while you’re alive! (And now I am off to the gym.)
— Mark Burns · Jul 1, 05:12 PM · #