Marian University: Exercise Science Experience

Situation

For Marian University, intercollegiate athletes comprised a critical part of overall enrollment. There are a handful of programs that athletes tend to gravitate toward, generally in the fields of business or exercise science. The exercise science program however was not as large as leadership felt that it had the capacity to be.

Solution

We helped the Exercise Science faculty re-envision their campus visit program. Since many recruited athletes were coming to the campus to check out the program, the facilities, the coaching staff, and the team, they usually also took the opportunity to check out the academic program in which they would be enrolled. Previously, most programs had faculty meet with the visiting prospective students (whether athletes or not) and present important information about the program. We turned their one-directional presentation into an experience.

We identified “work rate” as the prime thing to illustrate. In other words, we wanted to have the visitors actually experience the relationship between how hard they could work physically and their resulting heart rate. As we scheduled visitors for the experience, we told them to dress in athletic clothe and shoes, and come prepared to get sweaty.

Once they arrived at this portion of the visit, we explained the concept to them and gave them a two-sided card  the with the information that they could refer to later. Then we put a heart rate monitor on them and put them on an exercise bike! On the other side of the card we tracked their efforts on the bike against their heart rate, and literally illustrated for them the scientific relationship we had just discussed and how it manifested in them. Then we ran them through a general fitness test and extended the measure.

Success

Visitors absolutely loved this experience. Students were intrigued and excited to be instructed to come to the campus and exercise as part of their visit. Meeting with the Exercise Science faculty became a highlight of their trip, and their parents enjoyed watching them just as much. The faculty for the Exercise Science program and the staff from all of the teams throughout Athletics benefitted immediately from a closer working relationship where they saw their interests align more closely. Additionally, the benefits extended beyond recruited athletes to all prospective students for the Exercise Science program, and the program began to grow significantly after a long period of plateauing.