Kinesiology & Sport Management Succeeding with Consistent Leadership | October 2024 | Texas Tech Now
The rising department is a key contributor to Texas Tech’s apparatus with Angela Lumpkin
at the helm.
The Department of Kinesiology & Sport Management is virtually unrecognizable today compared to 10 years ago.
Joaquin Gonzales, an associate professor of kinesiology who started at Texas Tech University in 2010, described the department as in a state of flux prior to the arrival of current
chair Angela Lumpkin.
Faculty at the then-Department of Health, Exercise & Sport Sciences had seen two interim
chairs and one full-time chair between 2010 and 2014.
“For those faculty, her arrival was really a welcome change, to have somebody that
we felt was going to be there for a long period of time,” he said of Lumpkin. “We
really needed somebody to fill that role in a more stable and permanent position.”
Much more of the department needed rectifying, Gonzales remembers, to clarify what
curriculum and degrees were available and to encourage faculty retention.
Gonzales, who came to Texas Tech to earn his master’s degree in exercise and sports
science, recalls students had no way to determine what degrees they could earn by
looking at the name alone.
Soon after Lumpkin arrived, she asked the faculty to vote on a name change more consistent
with the degrees offered. Lumpkin also directed the department away from what she
described as trying to do too much with too few faculty.
“We had an interest in building out our undergraduate majors, whatever that looked
like, and we wanted to change it to keep up to where the fields were going,” she said.
“A lot of Exercise & Sport Sciences programs no longer exist, because it shoved together
a whole potpourri of different areas as the fields changed.”
No longer did the department offer a health and fitness track, physical education,
or exercise science, with the latter changed to a kinesiology major that is now one
of the more popular majors on campus. It also earned approval from the Texas Higher
Education Coordinating Board to add a Bachelor of Science and Master of Science in
Sport Management.
Those revisions happened early in Lumpkin’s tenure, requiring a shift in curriculum
as courses were dropped and added and totaling roughly 300 changes. Naturally, the
composition of faculty also changed.
Four faculty, including Gonzales, have remained in the department since 2014.
Grant Tinsley, an associate professor of kinesiology, joined the department in 2016. Though he’d
heard of the department as still in revolutionary change, Lumpkin’s organization and
communication throughout his application process assured him he would be supported
once he came aboard.
“I had some trepidation about the turnover, but she communicated her vision well,”
said Tinsley. “I had a lot of confidence in her because she’d previously been a dean
at the University of Kansas, so she had been in higher levels of administration and
had a lot of experience in higher ed, and she instilled a lot of confidence that she
knew what she was doing.”
What helped Tinsley early on was Lumpkin’s reduction of the extra, miscellaneous service
requirements that came with faculty’s research and teaching commitments, as well as
a course release that lessened his teaching load. That modification allowed him to
devote more time to establishing his research program and acquiring the necessary
equipment.
Another focus of Lumpkin’s has been developing her faculty’s teaching prowess.
She walked in the door with a love of teaching and a desire to elevate educators whom
she already believed were proficient.
Upon arriving at Texas Tech, Lumpkin got involved with the Teaching, Learning & Professional Development Center, furthering her longtime interests in teaching effectiveness. She was also selected
for the Texas Tech Teaching Academy in 2016.
Lumpkin held teaching workshops during her first few years as chair, focusing on active
learning that puts students in a place to take partial responsibility for their development.
Her emphasis on students interacting with their peers and the content they’re learning
remains today.
“Weve got the best technology on campus in our classrooms.”
“We just put upgraded display monitors up, we’ve bought rolling chairs, all out of
our money, and now we have in our six classrooms a setup that facilitates moving around,”
said Lumpkin.
When working with department faculty to develop a teaching plan, they emphasized the
importance of professional development. The current plan also requires departmental
course and instructor evaluations, the establishment of a teaching philosophy, and
individual reflections.
Tinsley said the evaluations have been instrumental in evolving his teaching. With
Lumpkin sitting in on many of the evaluations herself, given her knowledge of various
strategies and emphasis on active learning, the feedback is especially meaningful.
“Several times I felt like I delivered my best lecture ever, and she was still very
positive but had areas for improvement for us to continue to grow,” Tinsley said.
“She definitely pushes that continual growth as teachers, whether it’s your first
day in your job or you’ve been here almost a decade.”
These actions have resulted in assembling an intriguing roster of faculty, including
many on the tenure track who have risen since being hired by Lumpkin, and professors
of practice and lecturers who have been promoted because of the quality of their teaching.
Kinesiology & Sport Management earned the 2019-2020 Department Excellence in Teaching
Award from the Teaching Academy, and the Institutional Effectiveness Excellence Award
in 2020 from Planning and Assessment.
“We have an excellent curriculum, we’re delivering the curriculum very well to our
students, and we’re assessing their learning effectively,” said Lumpkin. “That’s what
those awards mean.”
The emphasis on teaching continues with the department’s doctoral program in kinesiology,
established in 2018. Doctoral students take a teaching class led by Lumpkin and are
assigned a faculty member to mentor them and develop lab courses to teach the undergraduate
kinesiology majors.
Over the last decade, the department’s focus on research activity has also increased
exponentially.
The expectation for department faculty is that they conduct research and publish peer-reviewed
articles, and kinesiology faculty are also expected to obtain external grants. Given
that most faculty are assistant professors, the department’s average of four publications
each year per faculty member is impressive.
Assistant professors Danielle Levitt and Hui Ying Luk’s recent accomplishment of receiving $3.5 million from the National Institutes of
Health to study the effects of heat therapy on prediabetic adults is the latest example
of the work faculty are doing to earn external grants.
Texas Tech’s support has contributed to raising the department’s research profile.
While its current building had a few well-established laboratories when Lumpkin arrived,
the department needed to build out and renovate to meet new research expectations.
Every kinesiology researcher has their own lab furnished with quality equipment, generous
startup packages from the College of Arts & Sciences and support from Vice President for Research & Innovation Joe Heppert.
“What weve done is built labs that set faculty up for success.”
Quality faculty come to Texas Tech because they see their resources won’t be limited,
added Gonzales. He also spoke about the level of grants faculty are earning, which
include highly competitive ones from the American Heart Association and the U.S. Department
of Defense.
When the university first earned the ‘Tier One’ Very High Research Activity designation
from the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education in 2015, an outside
observer wouldn’t have looked at Kinesiology & Sport Management and thought the department’s
activity aligned with the status.
Now, doctoral, graduate, and undergraduate students help faculty conduct research,
and they also receive funding from the department to present the research they’re
a part of at conferences and on campus elsewhere.
The establishment of a doctoral program was integral to creating a whole different
feel around the department, according to Tinsley, who said the program has increased
the quality and quantity of applicants for Kinesiology & Sport Management positions.
With all the research that’s being done throughout the department, Kinesiology & Sport
Management has raised its profile externally through experts coming from the department
to speak at conferences, on podcasts, and other platforms.
“It’s a great bidirectional relationship, where the College of Arts & Sciences provides
us with support,” said Tinsley. “That allows us to succeed in each of our individual
areas and collectively bring acclaim to Texas Tech.”
Morale within the faculty is sky-high.
Since so many have been hired in recent years, and so many are pre-tenured, the demographics
of the faculty comprise people in a similar age group, many of whom are starting to
build families. That contributes to a community feeling not only inside the facility
but outside as well, Gonzales said.
Colleagues have a lot in common, and they’re all supported in ways that no one feels
left out.
In addition to monthly meetings, Lumpkin hosts cookouts each August to kick off the
new academic year. She also noted how remarkable it is that more children keep showing
up with each event.
“That’s the future of your department showing up in their personal lives,” said Lumpkin.
The current state of the faculty excites her most about what’s to come.
She envisions them securing more grants and enhancing the department’s profile to
help Texas Tech achieve key benchmarks associated with AAU institutions, building
on the foundation Lumpkin has established to position the department as an integral
part of the campus.
Residing within a field that’s popular with students, the department has adjusted
to raise standards set for students and still has nearly 1,800 undergraduates taking
classes, a large number for faculty present. In 2016, the department raised the minimum
grade-point average for undergraduate majors to remain in Kinesiology & Sport Management
from 2.0 to 2.5. The minimum GPA was raised again to 2.75 in 2022.
The efforts have resulted in attracting a different kind of student to the department.
More science-based courses have drawn in students with career aspirations in medicine
and research, Gonzales said. That means aspiring physical and occupational therapists,
strength and conditioning coaches, and those who continue onto medical school.
Tinsley noted one of his first undergraduate students is now an orthopedic surgery
resident at the Mayo Clinic, after earning a bachelor’s degree in kinesiology and
subsequently enrolling in medical school.
“The students are getting a good learning environment, they’re engaging with what
they’re doing, and they’re getting jobs when they go out,” said Lumpkin. “Whatever
it is we’re doing, we’re doing it right.”
Gonzales wouldn’t have guessed in 2010 all that’s transpired in the years since.
Yet, 14 years later, he’s chosen to remain. Professors want to be in departments continuously
improving in the facets of quality of life, research and teaching, he said, and in
departments projected to rise in productivity, begetting continued support from the
university.
As opposed to only being productive through self-motivation, Gonzales looks around
and sees his colleagues firing on all cylinders.
“I’m in a department that I want to be in, because I know I’m going to be successful
because of the people around me,” he said.
Though Tinsley initially felt pressure about having to obtain external research funding
when he arrived at Texas Tech, he found an environment that wasn’t stressful. The
institutional support has made him feel comfortable in his role while encouraging
him to push for success, and the stability of Lumpkin as department chair also has
helped.
“I’m just happy in my job,” Tinsley said.
The tangible progress seen since Lumpkin took over as chair is what she enjoys about
being a leader. She finds pleasure in making a difference by fostering a better learning
environment for students and helping faculty advance their careers.
It’s all a part of building a culture of success and advancement, one with staying
power.
“I’ve always tried to do that in whatever leadership role I’ve been in,” said Lumpkin.
“I like to think when I leave a particular situation, it’s better than the way I found
it, and there’s a strong foundation upon which those after me can build.”
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