Athletic Training Program

Athletic Training Program

Institution

Introduction

Athletic training is much more than weightlifting, football, or personal training as there is, is more to athlete training than its name. Generally, athlete training is a course that leads to professions, and it is not necessarily that graduates enter the field. Like other lucrative professions, athlete training has also produced executive managers who organize and manage various sporting activities. The athletic training at the University of La Verne is a limited admission program designed to train and prepare students for a successful career as professionals in physical fitness and health practitioners. At the University of La Verne, the athletic training program is accredited by the Commission on Athletic Training Education. Over the years, graduates from this program have established an admirable and successful profession as athletic trainers in sporting clubs, high schools, professional sporting programs, sports medicine clinics, colleges, other universities, and physician clinics. Though downsizing is one of the approved management strategies that most institutions and organizations opt for as a measure of improving and boosting their service delivery to their clients

For instance, through its official management, Northwestern University decided to close a century-old dental school in 2004 since the institution ad run short of resources required to administer quality dental skills to students. The course was suspended for years to allow the institution to re-strategize, plan, and adequately equip the medical labs with the required technology before recalling back the program in 2007. Although the closure and downsizing of the dental course drew protests from students who were pursuing the course, after the years of suspension, it bounced back much better than it was before. Obviously, the program’s closure had negative implications on students on the program and even those who had aspirations of pursuing the same institution’s same course. As mitigation of these challenges, students who were on the program when the decision of closure was made were allowed to continue to completion and graduate. At the same time, another opening for inter-university transfer was also accommodated for those students who wanted to change institutions and complete their courses elsewhere.

The athletic training program has been one of the primary programs offered at the University of La Verne and has numerous graduates who are doing really well in the corporate field. Grandaunts from La Verne University are experts with distinctive and relevant educational skills and experience that have to enable them to advance in adverse professional fields, including sports and athletics. Following the tough times, unfavorable economic times, and management challenges, the university is considering downsizing its operations by eliminating some programs and courses offered. This is b old move since the institution’s mission is to offer nothing short of the best and high-quality education to students as they graduate to become exceptional professionals in various fields. Therefore to achieve this, it has to have a manageable population with reasonable and sustainable programs.

Implications

In recent years the number of high school enrolments has tremendously increased in the United States, thus resulting in an equivalent growth in the number of college enrolments on various courses and professional studies for undergraduate and postgraduate studies. The increment is a show of improvement in the education sector. This could be attributed to the intense campaign for better quality education and the aspiration to live up to the ‘American Dream.’ Though higher learning institutions are in continuous enrollments of students, the support resources are constant, which has led to the overpopulation of students in various institutions. The resources available are insufficient to serve the enrolled population adequately. Without adequate support resources or constraints on the limited resources, it has affected most higher learning institutions’ quality of education, resulting in management and administration challenges. Specifically, the University of La Verne has recorded a high number of students’ enrollment in various programs. Despite the high enrolment, the institution has managed to be one of the few institutions that still offer the best and quality education within the region. And for this positive reputation, the number continues to swell, and it’s projected that the number would increase further in the coming years. Thus a radical action to control the situation is needed to be considered by the institutional management.

The huge population of students has affected the learning process and service delivery to students. For instance, the University of La Verne is currently hosting a population of students twice the intended capacity. This has made it difficult to deliver quality training on various programs as the student to tutors ratio is overwhelmed, the constraint on resources such as libraries, recreation facilities, and accommodation facilities. With the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, such a population is a threat to learning programs as institutions are now considering reopening through in phases. Even with the latest recall on the finalist students to report to their institutions to continue with their learning process, in La Verne University, this has been a nightmare to actualize the social distance, and health regulations outline in regards to Covid-19 control measures. Therefore the institution has proposed closure and suspension of some courses and programs in order to have a manageable population that corresponds with the available resources.

Among the list of proposed programs for downsizing is the Athletic Training Program. After having an in-depth consultation with the students, staff, stakeholders, and the general public on the plans to downsize Athletic Training Program, this report outlines a detailed and conclusive justification with well-structured reasoning on why suspending Athletic Training Program would not be the best thing to consider. The review on the program was considered since it was introduced in the institution, its progress throughout the years of its existence, the statistics of grandaunt and their current positions in the profession to validate the program’s essence. An overview of the findings is categorically clear that the program has truly changed the lives of many who pursued the course and are responsible members of society, just but a glimpse of the program’s best impacts. The report in detail outlines the program’s merits both to the institution and students pursuing the course.

Essentials of Athletic Training Program

The athletic training program at the University of La Verne is offered through an established department that aims to deliver traditional athletic training and sports medicine services to athlete students. The training program is sub-divided into four main areas; identification and prevention of injuries, evaluation, recognition, and treatment of athlete injuries and other related illnesses, reconditioning and rehabilitation of all injuries on athletes and students, and general wellness and health education. Across the state, the University of La Verne has been long known for quality and professionalism when it comes to health-related causes, with the latest spike in admission and enrolment has been instigated by the reputation of the region. Among the courses and programs offered in the institution, Athletic Training Program is on the top list of the most preferred programs; thus, suspension of such a program would not resonate well with the general student fraternity.

The services offered by the Athletic Training Department go beyond coursework and does not only benefit the athlete students. After checking to verify the department’s importance to non-athlete students, it was established that the health department receives over one hundred non-athlete students daily who seek the services of the equipment and facilities within the department. Physical fitness goes beyond a career and profession. It is the admiration and desire of every student to have a healthy and fit life; thus, they utilize to maximize the department’s resources on their daily routine training. By suspending this program implies that that student who utilizes the department’s facilities will miss the services. This means that they will have to stop fitness training, and it won’t be a good feeling on them since fitness training demands consistency.  Downsizing is essential, but it should be considered on the programs with the least reputation on students pursuing the program, institutional image, and general students populace. I suspect uproar and protest by students in case the program is suspended as proposed. Protests and demonstrations should be avoided as much as possible since they disrupt the institution’s entire learning processes; thus, the institution management should factor in such possibility before making the final decision of suspending programs that are preferred by many students.

The outbreak of the novel coronavirus (Covid-19) has exemplified the essence of maintaining fit as physical fitness tops the list of precaution measures outlined by the World Health Organization (WHO). Athletic training helps students and concerned parties to have proper blood circulation, enhanced performance of the vital body organs such as the heart and lungs. The early revelation of the course fatality with the novel, Covid-19 virus showed that weak immunity system is vulnerable to the virus compared to those with well-established immunity system. Therefore, the recommendation was that people consider having daily routine athlete training and workouts to boost the heart’s pumping mechanism and enhance blood circulation, thus boosting the immunity system. In contemporary society, there has been a high demand for athlete professionals to help in training staffs and communities on the important physical fitness procedures as precautionary measures to combat the deadly virus Covid-19. Therefore the program has become the hot cake of our times; suspending such a program is not in line with the institution’s mission of being a leading institution on the provision of the best health care professionals in sports medicine. It is not possible to propagate this mission without an athlete training program.

Students who graduate in Athletic Training are licensed and credentialed to practice, just like any other healthcare profession. The training that these students go through sets them up to be able to enter very different patient healthcare fields. They complete three years of clinical training, which includes orthopedics, emergency medicine, primary care, nutrition and performance, enhancement, and rehabilitation. This prepares students for so many different options, such as military, ballet, circus, corporate wellness, high school sports, and professional and college sports. Additionally, athletic trainers are specifically trained in sports medicine, which is something other professionals typically have to specialize in after formal training. Athlete students have a vast field of professional practice, thus making it a more sustainable profession that should be encouraged among students rather than taking programs with narrow fields of profession or overstaffed professions. The essence of education and training is geared to help students have a stable lifestyle even upon graduation; thus, they need to consider lucrative options such as athlete training programs. Thus suspending the athletic training program at the University of La Verne still not the best decision to consider even upon the planned downsizing.

The standards of athletic training offered at La Verne University are exceptional and truly prepare students for a profession that requires critical thinking, attentiveness, and rapid decision-making. The most loved sports, such as football games, marathons, soccer, and large-scale athletics, require emergency services if there are injuries in the process. Thus the professionals well trained have been detrimental in the reduction of fatalities incurred in sporting activities. Unlike a century ago, where most athletes had to suffer permanent disabilities due to lack of proper emergency response to dragonize their injuries, such cases have dramatically reduced due to more trained professionals on athletic response programs. For the past years, La Verne University has been on the chats and billboards of sports medicinal professionals. It boasts of training students with adequate skills, critical thinking training to effectively think on life-threatening incidents in sports, marathons, or even during the soccer tournament. Therefore it beats logic on how such a profound program would be in the downsizing or courses suspension list of La Verne University. From the department, we obtained the list of graduate students who are established and are working in major football and soccer clubs within the United States and other international clubs outside the country, thus suspending the course would not be the best decision to be considered the administrative management.

It is not quite an easy task to compare one career or profession with another, but with the athletic trainers with the licensed physicians and medics in that the athletic trainers can work in other institution that operates on the athletic and sports-related fields, unlike licensed physicians whose works are predefined within the confines of the medical institutions. Another distinct difference is that physicians provide a medicinal diagnosis of the underlying condition while athlete trainers, in most cases, offer pre-hospital emergency cares on athletes. In another dimension, athletic trainers are on the spot and are with the athlete or thorough sportsperson evaluation of the problem and suggest the best and most appropriate medical path. This implies that trainers are with the sportspersons all the way through evaluation, diagnosis, referral and treatment process, rehabilitation, and post-recovery of the assigned athlete. Most of the La Verne University graduates are posted in various high schools, colleges as professional sports and athlete trainers. Still, the largest populations of graduates are posted in private medical, academic, and research institutions. With graduation certifications, grandaunts can seek an assessment from relevant licensing agencies for practice licenses to offer preliminary medical services to athletes before referring to the medical institutions.

According to the United States department of labor, athletic trainers’ recruitment and employment have increased over the past decade. It’s projected to grow by 25 percent in the next five years. The US department of labor has acknowledged the employment slots provided to competent athlete trainees that positively impact the creation of employment and absorption of graduates into the profession. This indicates that the athlete training program is a much relevant program that needs to be encouraged and embraced rather than downsizing. In another scope, a report released by Stanford Medicine Scope 2016 stated that over 80 percent of athletic trainers from La Verne University holds a master’s degree and a higher level of academic excellence.

Through these reports, it is evident that the kind of training offered at La Verne University is of high level and competitive in the professional field; therefore, it is one of the institution’s recognized programs. Thus, downsizing on athlete programs would mean that the institution would reduce the ratings and fall some positions in the US’s over-verities ranking according to recognizable programs offered. The success of athlete trainers’ grandaunts is a living testimony to the program’s relevance and importance to students pursuing the program.  There is a traceable database of alumnae of the institution with their roles and regions of professionalism. The university has thrived and for long defended the thorough changes in its structure. The obsolescence in the looming change in management has to factor all the relevance of all courses and programs aligned for downsizing to evaluate the implication on the institution’s profile, student’s fraternity, and professions in general. The list of sample students who have successfully graduated with either an undergraduate or master’s degree in the athletic training program

Additionally, La Verne University is well equipped with items and facilities on the athlete training program. Downsizing on the program implies that all these equipment are going to be rendered obsolete, with no function. Having educational items and established infrastructure with not absolute use will violate the principles of resource management. Thus it will not be logical to suspend a program with adequate facilities and resources that supports the athlete training program. Though downsizing might be necessary, it should consider other programs with the least negative impact on the students and institutions. I’m not a prophet of doom; I suspect that the student fraternity might not well receive the news of suspending the athlete training program since it best benefits them in numerous ways. Protests and demonstrations in the institution will violate the University of La Verne’s core value that entails that “the university supports justice with justice, respect of individuals an humanity and the health of the planet and its people.” Therefore institutional management should at all times thrive on making decisions that would not be a threat to the peace and stability the institution has enjoyed for all these periods. The constraints are visible, and management challenges are a reality, and change is essential for effective administrative management. There are courses and programs with few students and have the least effects on the institution’s profile and student community.

The interview with Professor Paul Alvarez showed the athletic training department’s progress in expanding its programs to offer masters in athletic training programs within the institution. Currently, the department has seven first years and nine-second years in the master’s program. Though the master’s program is still a new program and the institution has not reached the level of CBU, but the progress is positive. The distinctive feature of the athletic training program with other institutions is that La Verne University focuses on hands-on quality classroom education with practical training that equips students with clinical experience. It the clinical experience in the curriculum that triggers students to succeed. Prof also affirms that the department is well prepared and in compliance with the WHO and CDC’s measures and guidelines in combating the spread of the Covid-19 virus. With a sustainable number of enrolments, social distance is attainable, making the program no threat to the spread of the virus in the institution than other programs with hundreds of enrolments per academic level of study. Another affirmation given by prof is that the department embraces virtual graduation for students who have completed their studies, thus minimizing the challenge of congestion and overpopulation on the campus. Athletic training adds value to the institution as it is the most visible program that the University of La Verne is identified with, making it the marketing arm of the university and most intruding revelation of the athlete training program penetrating into the market “Athletic training is moving into places like Amazon and other big warehouses as healthcare providers. La Verne will be a leader in finding their needs and providing the professionals they need with the skills and knowledge to keep the employees safe,” as stated by Professors Alvarez.

In conclusion, the Athlete Training Program is the face and marketing brand for the University of La Verne, and if for anything, institution management should consider boosting the department through recruiting more tutors and personnel to motivate enrolment in the program. Through downsizing might be necessary in relation to the underlying managerial challenges, it should be conducted on programs that have the least impact on the institution’s profile and students as a whole. Even though the program does not have the highest population currently, but the trend has shown a progressive change, and in the next five years, it will be the course of choice to many due to its high demand on the market. With the highlighted reasons in the report, it is well thought for the institution not to suspend The Athletic Training Program in the proposed downsizing schedule since it has numerous advantages both to the university and the student pursuing the course.