Message From the Chair

Our faculty, staff, and students would like to welcome you to the Department of Health and Exercise Science, which is housed in the College of Arts and Sciences.  I hope that you are able to use our website to thoroughly explore all of our programs, get to know our faculty, and discover the many research opportunities available through our department.  I also hope you will get a feel for the closeness and camaraderie that our faculty and students share.

We are very proud of our department and our undergraduate and graduate programs.  We have developed an excellent core of faculty in the areas of Exercise Physiology and Health Promotion and we take pride in the fact that all of our faculty are involved with both the undergraduate and graduate programs.  We have 6 exercise physiologists with expertise in muscle and nerve physiology, body composition, sports nutrition, exercise biochemistry, bone physiology, endocrine function, aging, and biological signal processing.  We have 4 health promotion faculty with expertise in stress management, socio-cultural aspects of physical activity, physical activity measurement, and functional assessments.  Our programs integrate the biological, physiological, medical, and behavioral sciences as they relate to physiological responses to exercise and human health.

The Department of Health and Exercise Science is located in the west wing of the Huston Huffman Recreation Center and includes modern classrooms, a student computer lab, conference room, and offices for all of our faculty and graduate students, providing easy access to all members of our department.  Additionally, all of the Exercise Physiology laboratories which include the Biophysics, Body Composition, Exercise Biochemistry, Bone Research, and Neuromuscular laboratories are housed in the lower floor of the department.  There is a separate teaching lab located in the Colums Building within close proximity to the Huston Huffman Center.  All of the Health Promotion laboratories, which include the Functional Outcomes, Physical Activity Assessment, and Socio-cultural laboratories, are also located there.  For more detailed information about faculty members, their laboratories, research experiences, and current students, please visit the Research section and People sections of this website.

Our undergraduate program attracts students who have diverse interests including exercise/fitness, personal training, strength and conditioning, community and worksite health promotion, medicine, dentistry, physical therapy, public health, and many other areas of the allied health professions.  We encourage undergraduate participation in the Honors College, departmental research projects, internships, fieldwork experiences, and membership in professional organizations and societies as a means of enhancing their basic academic preparation.  As I mentioned earlier, the HES faculty are readily accessible to students, and we pride ourselves in our attention and concern for our undergraduate majors.  Our undergraduate program has a pre-HES track that has an enrollment of about 350 students, allowing us to select about 150 of our best students to enter the HES major.  The ‘core’ courses in our program will take an additional 3 to 4 semesters to complete before graduation.

Students who graduate from our undergraduate program have been very successful in entering many professional programs like medicine, physical therapy, dietetics, dentistry, nursing, etc.  They are also very competitive for graduate programs in Exercise Physiology and Health Promotion, as well as finding employment in areas like strength and conditioning, fitness centers, pharmaceutical sales, and wellness programs.

Our graduate program offers Masters of Science (MS) degrees in Health Promotion, Exercise Physiology, and an interdisciplinary degree that incorporates both Health Promotion and Exercise Physiology. We also offer separate doctoral (PhD) programs in Exercise Physiology and Health Promotion.  We primarily accept full-time MS and PhD students into our graduate programs, and we support them with graduate assistantships for the duration of their programs.  All of our graduate programs have a strong emphasis in research experiences that help develop competent and independent researchers in Exercise Physiology and Health Promotion.  Our MS graduates have been very successful in entering PhD programs, entering many of the allied health professions like medicine, physician assistant, etc., and finding employment in fitness and clinical settings.  Our doctoral graduates have gone on to post-doctoral experiences in some of the best labs in the country, found academic positions in many excellent universities around the country, or found employment in corporate settings.

Our graduate programs have excellent collaborative efforts with some of the programs at the Health Sciences Center in Oklahoma City, including Physiology and Biophysics, Gerontological Medicine, Nutritional Sciences, Rehabilitation Sciences, and Biostatistics.  There are also a number of collaborative efforts on the main Norman campus with departments like Zoology, Industrial Engineering, and Psychology.

The University of Oklahoma, the flagship university of the state, is a doctoral granting research institution.  Norman is a great college town with all the amenities of a small town (100,000) and within 30 minutes of Oklahoma City.  If you have any questions regarding any of our programs, please contact Dr. Craig Hofford, Chair of the Undergraduate Committee (chofford@ou.edu) or Dr. Joel Cramer, Graduate Liaison (jcramer@ou.edu).

Michael G. Bemben, PhD
Professor and Chair
C.B. Hudson Presidential Professor