Lazy students, look no further

The elimination of the University’s swim test in 1990 marked the end of Princeton’s physical education requirement. Several peer institutions, however, retain requisite participation in physical fitness programs. Currently, Cornell, Columbia and Dartmouth are the only Ivy League schools with physical education requirements.

Barnard College of Columbia University requires all undergraduates to take two semesters of physical education, which are graded based on participation and attendance. Physical education can take the form of varsity, junior varsity or intramural sports as well as fitness classes offered by the school.

But Roosevelt Montas, associate dean of the Center for the Core Curriculum at Columbia, said that the reasoning behind such a requirement has been lost over time.

“Frankly, I’m not even familiar with the rationale,” he said in an e-mail. “It’s one of those things that has ‘always’ been there and I’ve never heard a case for its removal.”

Similarly, Dartmouth students are required to take three quarters of “broadly defined” physical education classes, said Dan Nelson, senior associate dean of the college at Dartmouth. Class offerings include skiing, yoga, tai chi and golf. Unlike Columbia, however, Dartmouth doesn’t factor the courses into a student’s grade point average.

“It’s not an academic requirement,” Nelson said. “Students don’t get grades. It’s just something you have to do to graduate.”

Students typically don’t encounter any problems completing the requirement, Nelson said, adding that participation in intramural or intercollegiate sports also fulfills the obligation. “Most students don’t find it onerous, just a fabric of the institution,” he noted.

Cornell requires freshmen to complete two semesters of physical education classes and pass a swimming test.

Until recently, however, Princeton was not devoid of fitness provisos.

“For many, many, many years,” Princeton had a similar physical education requirement for which students had to take two semesters of physical education and pass a swim test, Dean of the College Nancy Malkiel explained in an e-mail, referring to the policy that began in September 1911.

Like its peers, Princeton exempted student athletes and ROTC members, and most other students took the requisite classes. “Over 90 percent of Princeton undergraduates in the 1980s were in fact fulfilling the physical education requirement,” Malkiel said.

In 1990, however, the University faculty voted to end the requirement because it “did not seem sensible” to deny a diploma to otherwise qualified students who had simply failed to pass their swim tests or take the required fitness classes, Malkiel said.

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“We had never denied a Princeton degree to the small percentage of students who did not fulfill the requirement,” she explained.

“We believed ... that the educational objectives embodied in the physical education requirement were being achieved and could continue to be achieved without perpetuating the ambiguity of an unenforced graduation requirement.”

Molly Herring ’10, a club volleyball player, echoed this sentiment, explaining that proactive students regularly achieve the former requirement’s goals.

“[There are] definitely plenty of opportunities to get exercise,” Herring said. Though it may require people “to take initiative,” she explained, “there’s nothing stopping them.”

Herring added that a Princeton physical education requirement would not prompt students to exercise more.

“I don’t think [the physical education requirement] would really help people spend more time at the gym,” Herring said. “Physical education would not have a long-lasting effect.”

Natalie Guo ’12 disagreed, explaining that if a wide variety of classes existed to fulfill the requirement, it would actually be “a good idea.”

But Gregory Peng ’12 expressed concern regarding the control the University would be exerting over its students with such a policy. A physical education requirement seems like “the school is forcing us to do something which should be our choice,” he said in an e-mail.

“I like that we don’t have [a physical education requirement],” Peng added. “After all, we should be old enough to make the choice of exercising on our own.”