Calling all KIN Alumni. Did you know that 2012 marks our 150th birthday?

In 1862, the State Normal School outlined a physical education program and during the fall advertised and then hired Mademoiselle Adele Parot to teach our first classes. Whether you were in Men’s PE, Women’s PE, Human Performance, or Kinesiology, you are “one of us.”

It’s time to celebrate! It’s been five years since our last alumni reunion and we’re pleased to invite you to the next, to be held on Saturday, April 21, in the newly re-painted SPX 89 (gym near quad). As the entire buildings will be totally renovated in 2013-14 (men’s gym in 2013 and women’s gym in 2014), this will also be the last time to see the buildings as maybe you remember them. The refurbishing will keep the ”shells” of all buildings but will completely replace what’s inside.

These are exciting times for the department. We now have over 900 undergraduate majors and over 100 graduate students!! We hope that not only will you want to come back and see old friends and reminisce but that you will also want to talk with current students, faculty and staff to find out what we are up to these days.

The program for the day includes:

10:30 AM arrival, coffee/tea will be served by current students

11 AM and 11:30 AM walking tours of campus led by students

11:30 AM and 12:00 noon walking tours of department led by students

1 PM lunch and reminiscences–please send in advance or bring on the day photographs etc. with you for display; prizes for oldest alums, farthest traveled, etc. If you can email pictures in advance for inclusion in a display, please do so to alyssa.wong@sjsu.edu (our student assistant) by April 2 or enclose with check (write name/address on back and these will be returned).

3:00-4:00 PM tour of Timpany Center (our off-campus facility for older folks/those with disability—4 miles away near Valley Med; directions given out at event). Swim!!

Shirley Reekie, Department Chair

PS  Check out our Newsletters at www.sjsu.edu/kinesiology

In the past three weeks, students in the SJSU Beginning Kayaking class have seen an assortment of birds including blue and black-crowned night herons, egrets, curlews, and a pair of bald eagles nesting, and an otter, all while paddling their own kayaks in class.  Previous classes have seen a beaver, coyotes, a seal haul out with over 50 seals, and have had a huge flock of plovers fly right though our group about 2′ off the water.  The sound of thousands of wings was amazing! In addition, they are studying the effects of wind, tide and currents on kayaking, so that they are appropriately confident to go out on their own after the course is completed.  Paddling starts on fresh water (at places such as Calero, Anderson, Lexington, and Stevens Creek) and then goes to various sloughs in the bay at Alviso, Newark, Palo Alto, and ends with a 9 mile paddle at Redwood City.

Students help each other unload kayaks and get ready to paddle each week, but start off by assisting each other in the pool when they have their swim test, capsize and re-entry test.  In this way, very strong bonds are built up and the students get to know each other really well by the end of the course.  Learning about sea level rise, and seeing what may be the likely effect very close to home is an important part of the class, as is a trash pick up day (almost always, the most numerous items picked up are bottles, and soccer, softball, basketball, volleyball, and tennis balls).  At Alviso, they see the still-active shrimp boat fleet and learn about the old port of Alviso and the steamers that used to be the most reliable way to get from the south bay to San Francisco.

For most students, even lifetime residents, this is their first time out on San Francisco Bay and some take a little while to grasp that this is, in fact, the ocean!  Yes, it is salty and yes it does have tides!!  When you’re out under the old Dumbarton Rail Bridge, and you see that all the buildings seem to be right at sea level, it’s a sobering thought to realize what any sea level rise will do.

So in addition to the friends made, the fitness gains achieved over 15 weeks through strenuous paddling, and the huge stress relief that three hours of being “apart” from the frenzied world of Silicon Valley brings, these students learn about local history and wildlife, almost by osmosis!

by Dr. Shirley Reekie.