Today students can complete Dartmouth's P.E. requirement without ever leaving their seats.
Classroom-style courses like "Alcoholism and The Culture of Addiction" and "Surviving the Dartmouth Experience" cater to the sedentary and waste the opportunity to expose students to the merits of exercise.
Students can now meet their P.E. requirements by participating in training for specific campus organizations, like the Peer Education Action Corps. Although this helps such groups recruit members, it is an illogical manipulation of the intent of requiring P.E. Perhaps the Athletic Department will extend P.E. credit to all members of the Glee Club next?
Wellness classes like "Health and Well-Being with Traditional Chinese Medicine" undoubtedly contribute to the long-term health of Dartmouth students, and the College should continue to offer them. But all able students should be required to spend at least two terms exercising. The point of a requirement is to encourage students to do what they would not do otherwise. Exercise is initially difficult and uncomfortable, but few activities are more rewarding.
By allowing some students to finish the requirement without raising their pulses, Dartmouth forfeits the chance to encourage undiscovered, life-long activities like aerobics, ballroom dancing, canoeing, cycling, fencing, in-line skating and rock climbing.
