Last week, students in the School of Kinesiology and Health Studies (SKHS) were notified via email that the faculty would be requesting a suspension of admissions into the Bachelor of Physical and Health Education (BPHE) program beginning in September 2017.

“This decision is not one that we have taken lightly,” Jean Côté, director of SKHS, wrote in the email dated Sept. 16.

“Foremost, it has been driven by a need to make the best use of limited resources in our School in order to continue to deliver top quality undergraduate programs,” he continued, in reference to the School’s split from Queen’s Athletics and Recreation in 2010 and the “austerity measures” being implemented across the post-secondary education sector in Ontario.

Furthermore, Côté wrote that with the PHE applicant pool slowly declining over the last few years and the KIN applicant pool growing almost more than double the size of the PHE pool this year, he envisions an eventual merging of the two programs in the near future.

Côté sent a second email a day later to assure students in PHE program that the announcement will have no effect on their ability to graduate.

“The School’s faculty members, staff and I are committed to ensuring that all current PHE students, and PHE students who enter in 2016, will graduate from the BPHE program as it is now constituted. We will continue to offer the BPHE program that you were attracted to and that led you to join us in SKHS,” Côté wrote in his Sept. 17 email.

The announcement was made public on Sept. 25 at the Faculty of Arts and Science Board meeting.

Brandon Jamieson, president of the Arts and Science Undergraduate Society (ASUS), found out about the announcement the day before the vote came to the Faculty Board — which he sits on — through a brief discussion at AMS Assembly on Sept. 24.

“It has to be looked at from different aspects of the student perspective and financial perspective, in questioning whether or not it should continue,” Jamieson, ArtSci ’17, told The Journal.

“That said, though, students were left out of the discussion, [and] this seems to be a repetitive pattern here at Queen’s.” 

This article will be updated as more information becomes available.