Department News | Faculty
Department Majors
Health | Human Performance & Sport
The Department of Exercise and Sport Sciences
New Mexico Highlands University’s Department of Exercise and Sport Sciences provides undergraduate students with a broad understanding of liberal arts and sciences as it pertains to health, physical education, exercise science, athletic training, and recreation and sport management. We concentrate on a full spectrum of human potential, from young to old, fit to unfit, recreational to higher athletics, healthy to diseased, and able-bodied to disabled. Our programs are related to the study of exercise physiology, health, teaching, athletic injuries, recreation, sport administration, and coaching.
Resources and Facilities
The ESS faculty offer courses for the community as well as university personnel. The New Mexico Highlands University Wellness Program provides a variety of health promotion activities, including classes, consultations, seminars, and workshops. Fitness and health assessments with consultation and exercise prescriptions are available to employees, students, and community members. The Cardiovascular Health Enhancement and Exercise Rehabilitation (CHEER) Program provides supervised exercise classes for patients with heart disease.
The John A. Wilson Physical Education Complex is the pride of the program. The building offers modern facilities for physical and health education instruction, student and faculty research, as well as complete facilities for athletic training. The HU Wellness program and Exercise Science Laboratory enable students to obtain practical experience in fitness training and exercise prescription. The Natatorium has been completely renovated; it is an eco-friendly green building (certified as LEED Gold, a high-level measure of green building practices) with modern accommodations for the students, employee personnel and the community. The Natatorium also serves as an educational device for students to gain practical experience working in an aquatics center. Students can do this in a variety of ways, whether it is by working as a lifeguard or taking classes to become a Certified Pool Operator (CPO).
The Department of ESS cooperates with other academic areas within the university by providing opportunities for students to take a variety of academic classes. There are numerous activity classes for students, faculty, and community members to take, such as: skiing, swimming, golf, fitness activity, racquetball, step aerobics, weightlifting, and dance. As part of their core requirements, students from across the university have an opportunity to take at least two physical education courses or the Fit for Life course. The Fit for Life course is a pre-requisite for all ESS majors.
The career choices for students receiving a major in the sport sciences are numerous: activity director/instructor, athletic trainer, personal fitness trainer, cardiac rehabilitation specialist, community health consultant, corporate wellness director, employee wellness consultant, health promotion and wellness leader/director, exercise laboratory technician, physical education teacher, health education teacher, recreation director, senior citizen recreation director, athletic director, public relations professionals, marketing manager, therapeutic recreation specialist, travel and tourism director, and many more.
Two undergraduate majors are available Highlands students to pursue in the Department of ESS: Human Performance and Sport (HPS), and Health.
There are also four minors available through the Department of ESS that students can pursue either as a minor to one of our department majors or for students outside of the department majoring in another area of study. The minors available are: HPS, Coaching, Recreation, and Health.
This major is under the College of Arts and Sciences