College of Sports Medicine wrote a press release on the study’s findings, which led to coverage in the mass media. Flynn, now a doctoral candidate at the University of Tennessee, says, “The [study’s] real implications were for campus recreation – ultimately, improving the overall experience of a student.” Yet as far as the kinesiology department is concerned, its work isn’t just for the campus – it’s for the whole community. One project, led by Todd Buckingham, 2011, B.S., helped the Saginaw Spirit hockey team pinpoint smarter training goals. By undergoing the students’ tests, the athletes could gauge how to spend their time prepping for the next game. One test, for instance, reveals how well blood carries oxygen, so one would know whether to do more aerobic or anaerobic training – to build endurance or focus on sprinting. An upcoming student-led project will focus on regional health, says Ode, who is pursuing a grant to support this research. The project will expand research on what local people think are the biggest problems facing their health. “You can’t help change people’s behavior until you know their perceptions,” he says. “So we want to find out, ‘Do the perceptions of the community match up to what are measured to be the real problems?’” The answer will help students Douglas Eck, Mitch Babcock and Heather Breasbois as they organize a student group focused on health issues in the region. “We’d like to get a better handle on what’s going on in the Great Lakes Bay Region,” Ode says. “And that would help more with our programs – our intervention development.” Then again, students themselves benefit from their work – they’re more prepared for the next step in academics. Eck, who also helped with the Saginaw Spirit project, says collaborating with 28 SAGINAW VALLEY STATE UNIVERSITY
Jenny Flynn
people outside the school helped him with applications for graduate school. “You can do lab practice, sure, but there’s always an ‘unreal’ feeling to it,” he says. “As soon as you bring someone in from the outside who doesn’t know anything about this work, you have to answer questions right there, in terms they understand.” Grad school is still a few years away for Paris Lucas, who is now one of nearly 300 students in SVSU’s exercise science program. Along with other programs in the College of Health & Human Services, it is housed in a new $28 million building with state-of-theart labs and equipment essential to training the next generation of health care professionals. More than 2,000 SVSU students have declared majors in the College of Health & Human Services.
At one time, Lucas wanted to study computers, but his life-changing family tragedy inspired him to change his focus. Now, he wants to tell his story to others, since really, it was only by chance that he tried to take control for himself. “If it wasn’t for my mom’s accident, I might not have ever decided to change,” he says. Today, six years later, Lucas’s mom is on her feet again, having pushed herself to be ready to walk for her son’s high school graduation day. Doctors hope that within the year she’ll be ready to leave her cane behind. Yet for Lucas, the path has been an inner one, with fulfilling work ahead. “It’s not about losing weight,” Lucas says. “It’s about gaining the confidence to become who you want to be.”