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By Annette Finley-Croswhite

Justin Haegele, professor and director of the Center for Movement, Health, & Disability, is a scholar of adapted physical activity – a relatively new interdisciplinary field in which he has become a leader since receiving his Ph.D. from The Ohio State University in 2015.

After working with Professor Xihe Zhu, Ph.D. to revive the ���Ϲ�’s Ph.D. program in health and sport pedagogy in 2016, Haegle has seen the program grow from two to 10 students, producing six graduates who are all tenure-track faculty at universities across the country. His most beloved experience – traveling around the world with graduate students and exposing them to the field “as he knows it.” 

“Dr. Justin Haegele is an outstanding faculty member who has excelled in every area of the academy. He provides exceptional teaching and mentorship to his students, cutting-edge and transformative research in his field and meaningful public service,” said Tammi Dice, dean of the Darden College of Education and Professional Studies. “Beyond this, he is a caring, inclusive individual, ready to advocate for what is right.”

Haegele has published more than 265 articles in peer-reviewed journals and won more than $10 million in grant funding. He is president of the North American Federation of Adapted Physical Activity and the editor-in-chief of peer-reviewed publications “Quest” (the official journal of the National Association of Kinesiology in Higher Education) and “Adapted Physical Activity Quarterly.” He also won the 2024 State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV) Outstanding Faculty Award.

On November 4, Interim Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs Brian Payne will welcome Haegele into the Provost’s Spotlight to discuss his impressive scholarship, dedication to teaching and some of his life experiences.

The event will be held in the Yetiv Auditorium in the Batten College of Arts and Letters from 3:30-4:30 p.m. with a reception to follow.

Ahead of the Provost’s Spotlight, Haegele answered a few questions from the Center for Faculty Development.

Please tell us about the field of adapted physical activity. What is it, when was it founded and how would you describe it?

Let’s first start with the definition that our International Federation of Adapted Physical Activity (IFAPA) uses: Adapted physical activity (APA) is a professional branch of kinesiology/physical education/sport and human movement sciences, which is directed toward persons who require adaptation for participation in the context of physical activity. From a sport science perspective, adapted physical activity science is research, theory and practice directed toward persons of all ages underserved by the general sport sciences, disadvantaged in resources, or lacking power to access equal physical activity opportunities and rights.

The field emerged in the late 1970s and early 1980s, with the founding of the “Adapted Physical Activity Quarterly” and the IFAPA.

I situate myself in the field of adapted physical activity broadly and then within adapted physical education more specifically. My background is in schools, and much of the research I do started in Adapted Physical Education (APE) although I have expanded quite a bit. APE could be defined as individualized or specialized physical education specifically designed for people with disabilities.

How did you "reincarnate" ���Ϲ�'s Ph.D. program in health and sport pedagogy and how has the program grown since then? Can you give us some program highlights?

I don't think I ‘reincarnated’ ���Ϲ�'s Ph.D. program in health and sport pedagogy. Dr. Xihe Zhu and I re-opened the program in 2016, after it had been dormant for some time. Initially, we had two students in 2016, with the idea that we could grow the program due to some gaps in what was available around the country. Today, our program has about 10 scholars.

One of the ways we have been able to be successful with the program is that many of the students focus within APE and there are  only 8 to 10  possible programs across the country. Last year, ���Ϲ� had one of the largest APE focused programs in the U.S.

We have also been successful with federal grant funding. In 2019, we were a subcontract, and I was the Co-PI on a $6.3 million grant from the United States Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP), to develop a national consortium to train doctoral scholars. This group was charged with training 28 scholars across eight schools. We ended up recruiting nearly 36 scholars total, with six receiving training here at ���Ϲ�. In 2022, we were lucky again and are now the lead on a $3.75 million OSEP grant where we are heading a group of three universities to train 15 scholars in APE. We have five here at ���Ϲ�, plus one departmentally funded scholar.

Please discuss the importance of the Center for Movement, Health & Disability (CMHD) at ���Ϲ�.

That’s a tough question. I don’t think we’ve realized the importance of this yet, as it is still new. But I believe it has allowed us to do more. By that, I mean that it has helped us organize all the work that we're doing, whether through Ph.D. training, service provision, or research, and communicate that to the community. I think that the CMHD has also helped us talk to funders or donors about what could be possible and what we can help to do for people with disabilities.

For me, part of this is being able to highlight the various programs that we've supported over the years, such as Camp Webber, REACH and Mighty Monarchs - programs designed to support physical activity or recreation for youth with disabilities.

We also know that we have the resources and support to start new programs as they are needed. I think the CMHD also helps us to extend to new possibilities through our scholarship and collaborations with other centers and research faculty. There are so many opportunities.

How do you define "inclusion" and use it in your discipline? The word, as you say in your publications, has become such a "buzzword" and one we use at the Center for Faculty Development frequently. How does your work with children with disabilities expand that term to include intersubjective experiences and offer spaces where disabled children's voices can be heard?

We recognize in our field, and many others, the word inclusion is used often without clear definitions or as a buzzword to help communicate a message (similar to equity, belonging, etc.). For us, saying the word inclusion is not enough, nor is simply putting people in the same physical or material space. Rather, it is the way that people feel within those spaces that is important. Hence, we've been writing about concepts of inclusion and exclusion as intersubjective feelings or experiences to extend inclusion beyond just a parochial material space and toward caring about and understanding feelings.

Please discuss one significant experience you've had at ���Ϲ� that stands out in your mind as critical to your role as a faculty member and educator.

I have had a fun experience so far at ���Ϲ�. My favorites are likely trips that I've taken with graduate students helping to show them the field as I know it. This might be times going to Chile, or South Korea, or Portugal, or Spain, but it’s those times that we've spent with others in our field that are so meaningful. I enjoy introducing new scholars to these groups of people, my friends, mentors and other scholars in the field. 

Probably the one experience that sticks out most is a trip to Hawaii a few years ago, with the MAMC (that big group of scholars from the first USDE grant). The reason this one was important was that in addition to our three scholars, as well as many friends and mentors from the field being there, my wife and two daughters also came. There was one night at a luau where my wife was chatting with a faculty friend, and my two daughters were making leis with some Ph.D. scholars, and I remember thinking, “Damn, this is cool.” I keep a photo on my wall from that trip of my wife, two daughters and three former Ph.D. students.