By Kailey Knoop, Reporter

Edited by Madeline Hubbert

MOUNT BERRY, Ga. – Berry College’s addition of Physical Activity Courses will provide increased opportunities as well as flexibility for students’ schedules.

The change will be put into place starting in the Fall Semester of 2024. It will be focused on courses that meet the General Education Requirement, referred to as Foundations of Knowledge courses at Berry. The category is titled Physical Wellness. The Physical Activity Courses, which have the class code “PAC,” are within this section, and will be the only classes that count toward the requirement from now on. Kinesiology courses, previously offered, will no longer be part of the section but may be eligible for other Foundations of Knowledge requirements. They will not count toward the Physical Wellness category, which has been designated solely for Physical Activity Courses.

Instead of an ongoing list of courses that were all under the Kinesiology class code, the PACs will be grouped into their own topics, with classes relevant to the topic included in each numeral category. For example, one topic is called “Aerobic Fitness,” and the classes coded within this section are PAC 110. All similar classes involving aerobic activities would be grouped under this class code. According to the Dean of the Charter School of Education and Human Sciences, Alan Hughes, this will make it more efficient for students to select courses that they can be certain will count for Foundation requirements.

“Right now, if you go to the Berry College catalog and look up the classes in Kinesiology, there’s just a whole long list of them that just sit there; sometimes they get offered,” Hughes said. “So, what they [the Department] try to do is clean it up so it’s more clear to people what classes are Foundations and what classes are not Foundations.”

The reorganization of categories and Physical Wellness topics will also aid students by providing a simplified view of the available classes.

Some examples of unique classes in PAC topics include rock climbing and kayaking, led by Outdoor Recreation. These are different from traditional classes because instead of meeting at scheduled times weekly, there will be designated days for the classes to meet longer due to the nature of such classes. These special topic classes also have fewer students in them. Berry College Director of Recreation, Victor Morales, teaches rock climbing and kayaking, with hopes that these experiences can foster lifelong activity.

“Our goal is really to get students to love the sport that they do, whichever PAC that they choose, and find a way so that they can do it for the rest of their lives,” Morales said.

These classes provide meaningful opportunities to engage in unique activities which students will be encouraged to take, as they are part of the Foundations requirement.

These classes will benefit students seeking to take PAC courses, including more accessibility to courses in the Physical Wellness category. In addition, this change will increase flexibility within students’ schedules. Associate Professor and Department Chair of Kinesiology, David Elmer, elaborates on how the reorganization will affect courses being offered and affect students themselves.

 “We’d have a lot of juniors and especially seniors fill up those seats taking their second, third, or fourth class,” Elmer said. “So essentially they’re taking away all the seats that freshmen, sophomores, or sometimes juniors need because they still haven’t done that requirement yet.”

Thanks to this new layout including PAC courses, students who may not have had the opportunity to register for such classes due to the seats being filled, will be able to participate.