Active living in municipal parks and recreation : a case study

If quality of life is an important recreation outcome, then municipal parks and recreation management's efforts have to change because:· Over one-third of all the little kids in schools will be diabetic in their lifetime if the trends we are looking at continue. The average loss of life is about 15 years, and there is an average reduction in quality oflife by about 20 years (Jackson, 2007). This thesis is about municipal parks and recreation, an agency that controls and limits physical activity opportunity. It is also about active living; from an ecological perspective, a multi-disciplinary approach to incorporate physical activity into more 111 people's daily lives. In particular, this thesis examines one case --'. the Donutville Case - . with the intent of providing an explanation of how municipal parks and recreation can advance its management efforts to improve health outcomes of people suffering from daily physical activity deficits. More specifically, how can the tension between external and internal environments to municipal parks and recreation be better balanced to affect the change needed? Given that changing the current social reality is through making decisions, decision-making functions connected with systems theory helps identify how recreation authorities can more effectively influence environmental physical activity determinants. , Sallis et al.' (2006) ·social ecological model provides the a priori focus on active living decision-making. An integrated analogous emerging logic model is developed and presented as an efficacious strategy for how municipal parks and recreation decisionmakers can affect change. Keywords: physical activity, benefits outcomes, healthy livable community, quality of life, systems thinking, social ecological model, deci~ion-making, logic modeling, municipal parks and recreation, active living.

A speculative systems model of the dynamic interaction among students, faculty and administration in the community college, with particular reference to intrinsic motivation and the teacher-administrator interface

The challenge the community college faces in helping meet the needs of the living open system of society is examined in this study. It is postulated that internalization student outcomes are required by society to reduce entropy and remain self-renewing. Such behavior is characterized as having an intrinsically motivated energy source and displays the seeking and conquering of challenge, the development of reflective knowledge and skill, full use of all capabilities, internal control, growth orientation, high self-esteem, relativistic thinking and competence. The development of a conceptual systems model that suggests how transactions among students, faculty and administration might occur to best meet the needs of internalization outcomes in students, and intrinsic motivation in faculty is a major purpose of this study. It is a speculative model that is based on a synthesis of a wide variety of variables. Empirical evidence, theoretical considerations, and speculative ideas are gathered together from researchers and theoretici.ans who are working on separate answers to questions of intrinsic motivation, internal control and environments that encourage their development. The model considers the effect administrators·have on faculty anq the corresponding effect faculty may have on students. The major concentration is on the administrator--teacher interface.For administrators the model may serve as a guide in planning effective transactions, and establishing system goals. The teacher is offered a means to coordinate actions toward a specific overall objective, and the administrator, teacher and researcher are invited to use the model to experiment, innovate, verify the assumptions on which the model is based, and raise additional hypotheses. Goals and history of the community colleges in Ontario are examined against current problems, previous progress and open system thinking. The nature of the person as a five part system is explored with emphasis on intrinsic motivation. The nature, operation, conceptualization, and value of this internal energy source is reviewed in detail. The current state of society, education and management theory are considered and the value of intrinsically motivating teaching tasks together with "system four" leadership style are featured. Evidence is reviewed that suggests intrinsically motivated faculty are needed, and "system four" leadership style is the kind of interaction-influence system needed to nurture intrinsic motivation in faculty.