Feature Story
New Sport Performance Major Announced, Beginning Fall 2025
President Bonnie H. Cordon and the President’s Council are pleased to announce that beginning in the Fall 2025 semester, Southern Virginia University will offer a bachelor’s degree program in sport performance that emphasizes reflective participation in competitive sports. A minor and several related concentrations will also be available.
“At Southern Virginia University, we believe in educating the whole person—mind, body, and spirit,” said President Cordon. “The new sport performance major embodies this idea by helping our many student-athletes reflect on their athletic experiences through the lens of leadership, character, and purpose. This innovative program will not only prepare students for meaningful careers in the world of sport, but also strengthen their capacity to lead lives of service, discipline, and joy.”
In addition to requiring at least two seasons of intercollegiate sport, the major’s core includes courses in habits for living well, nutrition, sport psychology, philosophy of sport, and leadership. Elective courses include sports analytics, sports marketing, sports management, athletic training, coaching, kinesiology, strength and conditioning methods, internships, and more. Optional concentrations in coaching, sports analytics, sports communication, sports design, sports management, sports photography, and strength and conditioning will also be offered.
“Plato thought that participation in sport and dance can help develop virtues of good citizenship, including self-discipline, courage, fair-mindedness, and sound judgment,” said Professor John Armstrong, who led the program’s creation and will serve as the program coordinator. “As Latter-day Saints, we see the connection of body and spirit as important to living a joyful life. Sport is a way to celebrate and explore that connection.”
Southern Virginia University sponsors more than 20 NCAA Division III teams as well as competitive club teams in dance, cheer, rugby, and esports. In addition to men’s volleyball and esports’ recent national championships, in the 2024–25 academic year the university’s teams combined for 10 conference titles, 14 players of the year, dozens of all-conference awards, eight coaches of the year, four NCAA tournament appearances, and four All-Americans.
“Our student-athletes are spread across all of the university’s major programs,” said Josh Monsen, the university’s athletic director and one of the program’s sponsors. “The sport performance major will be attractive to student-athletes who want to study sport in its own right and make their participation in it more reflective.”
Student-athletes participating in the major or minor would enroll in the required PER 259R Physical Conditioning. Students who compete in a professional or elite sport may petition the Sport Performance Committee for permission to use their training toward the program’s requirements.
The program’s introductory course is PER 105 Habits for Living Well, which relates the cultivation of athletic skill to the exercise of virtues in a successful life. It is open to students inside and outside the major, as are most courses in the program.
“To my knowledge, no university in the country has yet fully embraced a sport performance curriculum as an academic discipline in this way,” said Dr. Erianne Weight, the director of the Center for Research in Intercollegiate Athletics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and one of the proposal’s external reviewers. “This proposal acknowledges the deep intellectual and developmental value of sport and positions student-athletes to translate their on-field experiences into lifelong skills.”
In addition to Armstrong and Monsen, Associate Professor of Psychology Alan Whitehead and Professor of English Scott Dransfield were involved in the program’s creation as sponsors.
Students interested in pursuing a degree in sport performance should reach out to the Registrar’s Office at registrar@svu.edu for additional information, including declaring sport performance as their major and enrolling in the program’s courses. Program requirements are published in the university catalog.