RESEARCH Educating Park and Recreation Professionals in Changing Times By Brooke Burk, Ph.D., and Dianne Palladino, Ph.D. “ he hallmark of a profession is the body of knowledge that it possesses. And our profession possesses a great body of knowledge, indeed,” writes Karla Henderson in the July 1994 issue of Parks & Recreation magazine. NRPA’s Research and Evaluation department partners with scholars to strengthen the bridge be-tween these vast research findings and the professionals who can apply those findings, ultimately, to benefit communities. This month’s column highlights research published in a special issue of one of NRPA’s academic research journals, SCHOLE: A Journal of Leisure Studies and Recreation Education . In 2023, SCHOLE’s editors sought to address concerns about reduced access to literature and research impacting learning in the United States and worldwide. Edu-cators teach both students and park and recreation professionals who work in communities with people of different backgrounds to provide spaces and programs to which all residents deserve access. Sharing ideas that support learning and continued professional growth to help them effectively support com-munities is essential. To create space for these con-versations, SCHOLE editors de-veloped a special issue titled “Bat-tling the Bans: Leisure Studies and Recreation Education in an Anti-Equity Era.” We observed global legislation and policy shifts that challenge the principles of JE-DIA in leisure studies, recreation education and related fields. The U.S. Supreme Court’s Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) decision, shifts in worldwide immigration policies, and other changes in long-standing practices and poli-cies that increased access to parks and recreation illustrate growing opposition to access for all. New legislation has limited units, pro-grams and educational priorities that bolster access on campuses. These deliberate policy changes di-rectly affect programming and the creation of safe spaces for many of our colleagues, friends and neigh-bors. Yet many faculty members in our field remain committed to ad-vancing access for all — even while navigating broad political move-ments that seek to weaponize and harm people of color. SCHOLE’s editors invited sub-missions on topics related to high-er education in leisure studies and recreation that intentionally limit learning in these topics, re-sulting in the publication of five peer-reviewed papers. Readers may access these articles free of charge for one year in this special collection: • “Beyond Binaries: Reimagin-ing Leisure Education Through Queer Pedagogy” by Kshitij Tew-ari explores strategies for leaning into difficult and uncomfortable conversations by treating them as opportunities for learning. • “Strategy for Conveying Asyn-T chronous Course Materi-al During the ‘Inclusive’ and Anti-Ban Era: Studying a Case of Storytelling as Professionally Generated Scenarios” by Katrina Black Reed delves into strategies for facilitating conversations that encourage continuous engage-ment in online environments. • “What Happened When We Stopped Grading?” by Paul Stone-house, Callie Schultz, Russ Curtis, Jeremy Schultz and Sarah Farrar considers alternatives to tradition-al grading strategies. Ideas explore models for staff reviews and re-think typical evaluation practices. • “Intersections of Pedagogy and Praxis: Critical Reflections on ‘Possibilities’ for Teach-ing About Race, Class, and Gender in Leisure Studies” by Leah Joyner, Mary Breunig and Dana Kivel explores strategies for teaching students (and staff) about JEDIA topics by connect-ing theory directly to practice. • “Beyond the Ban: Innovating JEDIA Education Through Esports Integration at JMU’s X-labs” by Augustus W. Hallm-on, Raafat Mahmoud Zaini and Séan R. McCarthy reviews inno-vative technologies and collabo-rative methods to reconsider our training approaches. Brooke Burk, Ph.D., is a Professor at Minnesota State University, Mankato and Co-Editor of SCHOLE: A Journal of Leisure Studies and Recreation Education . Dianne Palladino, Ph.D., PMP, is Director of Research and Evaluation at NRPA. 18 Parks & Recreation | APRIL 2026 | PARKSANDRECREATION.ORG
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