Proposal

Project Narrative:

The Exercise Science and Health Promotion (ESHP) department at Florida Atlantic University has seen rapid growth in recent years.  The department has expanded to become the 5^th largest program on campus and currently has approximately 1,000 undergraduate and 80 Master’s degree students.  Concomitantly, the field of exercise and health science is continuing to expand exponentially. With growth in our program and the field as a whole consistently expanding, it is necessary to continually enhance our technology and teaching laboratory equipment.  Additionally, we have recently established a Muscle Physiology laboratory, which has the potential to deliver cutting edge information and testing techniques to our students.  Therefore, with new technology ESHP students will acquire unique laboratory skills and research experience along with continuing our department’s ability to meet the mission of the FAU Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP).

Our program has capitalized on our growth through collaborations with the Colleges of Science, Medicine, and Engineering in recent years to expand the reach and scope of ESHP research.  Our new Muscle Physiology Laboratory is taking the next step in conjunction with these collaborations to answer the important questions related to attenuating age-associated muscle loss and inflammation and protect against disease, along with enhancing human performance.  The current equipment our laboratory contains allows students to learn these traditional methods and the benefits of exercise and training.  However, in current times, exercise science students must retain many more skills than just the traditional techniques.  Recently, many of our students have benefited greatly from our new technology, laboratories, and expansion to receive undergraduate grants and continuing there education to the Master’s/Ph.D. level.  By funding this technology grant the students and faculty of the ESHP department will continue to progress the program and take significant steps in answering novel questions within our field.

In summary, as the ESHP department educates graduate and undergraduate students and continues to coincide with FAU’s QEP mission, we are requesting this grant for the purchase of an Isokinetic Dynamometer.  If this project is funded students will be able to acquire the necessary muscle physiology knowledge along with innovative techniques related to muscle strength and fatigue testing across various populations along with examining training protocols to blunt muscle and functionality declines associated with aging.  Ultimately, the proposed equipment is invaluable to our students as interest in optimizing clinical application of exercise, health, and human performance continues to expand.  Additionally this equipment would provide our students with the latest knowledge, and would make our students highly competitive and marketable as exercise physiologists in the field, but also as candidates to continue their education as medical student’s, physician’s assistants, physical therapists, doctoral programs, and other post-graduate research opportunities. 

1.       How is this project aligned with the Strategic Plan? Please cite specific goals and strategies.

Our proposal aligns with the university’s goals 1, 2, 3, 5, and 7 of the FAU Strategic Plan.

Goal 1: Providing Increased Access to Higher Education

By providing state-of-the-art technology, it will advance our exercise science program by recruiting high caliber undergraduate and graduate students.  

Goal 2: Meeting Statewide Professional and Workforce Needs

ESHP students will gain extensive laboratory skills and research experience, to strengthen applications for post-graduate studies in physical therapy, physician assistant, and doctoral programs. Additionally, the newfound skills will also enhance their job opportunities (such as research associates).

Goal 3: Building World-Class Academic Programs and Research Capacity

This innovative technology will allow ESHP students and faculty to conduct cutting-edge research, an enhance FAU’s academic program by publishing our research findings in higher tier journals.  Further, a goal of our research is to develop exercise training programs, as preventative strategies to attenuate age-related muscle loss and maintain quality of life in addition to enhancing exercise performance.

Goal 5: Building a State-of-the-Art Information Technology Environment

With the advance technology provided by this grant, we would be in position to collaborate with other highly regarded scientists due to possessing resources that could not be found at other institutions.

Goal 7: Increasing the University's Visibility

If this proposal is funded, it will enhance the ability of ESHP students and faculty to produce collaborative research, which is recognized nationally and internationally.  We will present our research produced from the proposed technology fee grant at the American College of Sports Medicine Conference, which is the largest sports medicine and exercise science meeting in the world.  Additionally, we will present at the world renowned Experimental Biology Conference.  The research results provided from the proposed pioneering technology will be published in the most highly regarded journals in our field (e.g., Journal of Applied Physiology, and Medicine and Science in Sports Medicine).

An amount of $35,000 requested from the FAU Technology Fee Grant will be utilized for purchase of the Isokinetic Dynamometer for Muscle Physiology.