Dr. Emily H. Wughalter has been named the recipient of the Luther Halsey Gulick Medal from the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance (AAHPERD) for 2014. Wughalter will receive her award at the AAHPERD National Convention and Exposition on April 4, during the Hall of Fame Banquet at the Renaissance St. Louis Grand Hotel, in Missouri. She is a professor in the kinesiology department in the College of Applied Sciences and Arts at San José State University.

Emily Wughalter

The medal is awarded for long and distinguished service to one or more of the professions represented by AAHPERD, which is the largest professional  organization serving health and physical education professionals.

Wughalter has held multiple service and leadership positions with AAHPERD, including two terms as a board of governors representative, vice president of the National Association of Girls and Women in Sport, the president of the Research Consortium and a member of the Social Justice and Diversity Committee of AAHPERD.

Most recently she served as a member of the Visioning Committee for the unification of AAHPERD that will become the Society for Health and Physical Educators (SHAPE America) in April 2014.

Over a span of 33 years, Wughalter has often served simultaneously on multiple boards to advance the fields of physical education and kinesiology. She has provided leadership in the National Association for Kinesiology in Higher Education from which she received the Distinguished Service Award in January. She is also past president of the Western Society for Physical Education for College Women. Her sustained and significant leadership and commitment to girls and women in sport, and social justice and diversity issues is a vein that runs through all the work she does and often puts her on the margins of change.

The Luther Halsey Gulick Medal is named for Gulick (1865–1918), who spent his adult life promoting physical education instruction through his work with the YMCA and New York City public schools. Gulick is credited with having a student develop a game that could be played indoors which evolved into the now popular sport of basketball.

Emily Wughalter with her dog Ruby.