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- Dr. Louis Bowers
College of Education Faculty Oral Histories
Dr. Louis Bowers
AH: It sounds like the stereotype of physical education teachers is miles away from what you’ve been turning out in this program. You specifically brought more of a scientific basis to the program. I was looking through some of the literature you’ve written. It’s very much what you were talking about; how grip strength relates to how large the hand is, etc. It sounds like you really had students doing those kinds of scientific observations on site.
LB: Very much so. My background had been a double major in physical education and science. So although I was in a physical education particular curriculum, we took all of our undergraduate courses with the pre-med students. The reason I wanted to teach at the university level was because of my interest in research. I always viewed the kinesiology, exercise physiology, and the motor development courses as the core of the program and the knowledge base upon which teachers would be making important decisions about children and exercises, what was good for them and what they should and shouldn’t be doing at various ages. The science part of the program, along with the strong teaching methods and professionalism, made for a quality program. There’s such a high dropout rate among teachers and physical education teachers, particularly because they’re out in the sun all day.
We made it important that our graduates stayed professionally up-to-date, that they were active in reading and going to conferences and continuing to update themselves and improve. Of the 1,200 graduates, we could cite some who are directors of physical education here in the state of Florida, county superintendents, and many principals. The biggest thing to me is the number of teachers now that thirty-five years ago graduated from the program, how many of them are still teaching and excited about it, and still doing a good job. They’re almost ready for retirement, but they have made that kind of life-long commitment to either elementary or middle school or high school students. That’s what that program is all about; to make sure they didn’t graduate and drift. We try to keep contact with them and we try to make sure they were continuing their professional growth.
AH: It sounds like by continuing that growth, that keeps them engaged in the profession rather than just sitting under the sun and getting tired of their profession. They stay engaged and interested.
LB: Many went on to be involved in teacher preparation, which was great to see them doing the same thing we were doing with them. It was a very real and very deep experience for all of us. Dr. Margaret Crickenberger deserves a great deal of the credit for that as she was the person who was here and sought the others who joined in the program. They were exciting years, and I’m happy to see that under Dr. Mike Stewart’s leadership we continue to have a good faculty. The entire original faculty group has retired. The new faculty members appear to have picked up the philosophy and will build on what was started.
AH: You were kind of a rare case if you consider the entire forty-some-odd years going back when you moved into a brand new building. What was it like moving into your first office?
LB: I shared it with Dr. Charles Smith. That was good. Even though we later had individual offices as faculty, to have someone who was starting new here was a plus. We had come and joined the program at the University of South Florida, had the chance to get to know each other and still are very good friends. That was a good situation. In those days, I guess because of lack of faculty offices, we had faculty members from the College of Education in our building before the new College of Education building was completed. There were a lot of disciplines in our building. We rubbed elbows with people outside of our department out of necessity or lack of office space. Gradually everyone was pooled together in their own departments and the University really became a little more traditional in that sense than what we had in the early days.