A. E. Ismail Center: Professional Preparation

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Professional Preparation

The Ismail Center serves as a practical laboratory for over 100 students every year. They work to improve their knowledge, skills and abilities in a variety of health and fitness areas through our volunteer program, internships, graduate assistantships or direct employment.

Academic Courses – Several academic courses have direct or indirect involvement with the Ismail Center.

Foods & Nutrition 415: Practicum
Students work one-on-one with an adult client over the course of a semester to help them achieve measurable and meaningful health and fitness outcomes. After receiving several weeks of training the students are matched with a volunteer adult client. They then perform fitness and nutrition assessments, compose an exercise and nutrition plan, implement the program and perform follow-up assessments at the end of the semester. The course culminates in the students giving a power-point presentation to the class describing their client, the methods they implemented and subsequent results.

HPER 421: Health Screening, Fitness Evaluation and Prescription
Provides student with the basic knowledge and skills in health screening and instrumentation. Includes health risk appraisals, skinfold tests, blood pressure and cholesterol screenings, flexibility and fitness testing and techniques for counseling and feedback sessions.

HPER 422: Clinical Experiences in Health and Fitness
Students refine the skills they learned in HPER 421 by performing screenings for college-age and older adults on campus and learn advanced techniques in fitness assessment. In addition exercise prescription for healthy and at-risk populations are covered. A highlight of the class is the “Personal Training Project” where students perform initial assessments, develops an exercise plan, implements the plan and performs outcome assessments on a peer volunteer.

In addition, approximately 100 students annually choose the Center to fulfill some or all of their service-learning requirements in many courses within Health and Kinesiology.

Employee Training – All Ismail employees are trained in CPR and Automated External Defibrillator use, fitness instruction, proper equipment usage, customer service and various fitness topics. The training may be accomplished in group or individual settings throughout the semester. In addition all employees must maintain Continuing Education Points (CEP’s) in order to keep their employment in the center. CEP’s can be accumulated by attending or conducting staff in-services, attending local, regional or national conferences and through other means. This process helps to ensure that all members of the staff are continuing to increase their knowledge, skills and abilities within the field of health and fitness.