The community health education degree has been eliminated, but the program is still available, said officials in the Department of Health and Human Performance.

The B.S. has been dropped, but community health education has been added as another option under the renamed exercise and sports science degree, said Jerry Thomas, professor and chairman of health and human performance.

“It’s not a deleting of the program – the option is not going away,” said Gregory Welk, assistant professor of health and human performance. “It looks that way if you look at majors, but the option is still available with the health and human performance program.”

“Budget cuts impacted our decision to do this,” Thomas said. Spaces vacated by faculty were left open due to the budget crunch, and the program did not have the resources to support the students’ needs, he said. “We couldn’t maintain a freestanding degree.”

However, money wasn’t the only reason.

“It was one of the things we’d like to do anyway, irregardless of the cuts,” Welk said.

The University of Iowa’s school of public health was another consideration, Thomas said. Trying not to overlap was an issue, he said. Iowa’s program differs from Iowa State’s in its main focus.

The focus of Iowa State’s program is health as it relates to physical aspects, while Iowa’s program looks at health in broader respects.

Though the degree has changed from the specific community health education to an option under the broader health and human performance program, it is still basically the same, if not better, Welk said.

“It is going to enhance the scope of the program,” he said.

Thomas agrees.

“It still focuses on disease prevention and health promoting particularly relating to physical activity” he said. “We’ve refocused, not eliminated. I believe our students will be well-served in this model.”

Student in the community health education degree can currently complete the degree as it stands, or can opt to change to the new degree, Thomas said.

Roughly 100 people are in the health division of the health and human performance major, said Carol Cordell, academic advisor for health and human performance.

“It will be more of a cohesive educational program for them,” Cordell said. “All of our students will be effected because it will expand their choices. The purpose of it is to make better connections for the students between health, fitness and wellness.”

New students will no longer enroll as a community health education major, Thomas said. But, the option is still available for students who would like to take that focus.

The unified program will be available under the 2003-2005 catalog, Cordell said.

“We’ll be one big happy family as soon as we can make it that way,” she said.

In the meantime, the department is working to align the paperwork and computer systems with the intentions of the combined programs, Cordell said.