Reflecting on the State of U.S.Doctoral PETE Programs … “Houston, We’ve Had a Problem.”

On April 11,1970, Apollo 13 embarked on humankind's third mission with the goal of landing two more U.S. astronauts on the surface of the moon. The Apollo space program had experienced enormous successes in short amount of time. And following the historic Apollo 11 and 12 missions, the future looked bright. However, two days into the mission, one of the oxygen tanks exploded, because of defective wiring in the electrical system. In their effort to bring back the three astronauts, the entire team of technicians in the program had to use all of their expertise and creativity to make unprecedented adjustments and decisions. The astronauts did return safely, but after the mission (called a successful failure), program administrators had to step back, reflect, determine the cause of the problem, and develop solutions to prevent repeat occurrence. This theme issue of Journal of Teaching in Physical Education constitutes the first concentrated effort to reflect on critical dimensions and issues related to the quality of doctoral programs in Sport Pedagogy/Physical Education Teacher Education (PETE) in the United States (hereafter referred to as D-PETE programs). For number of years now, Drs. Rikard, Boyce, Goc Karp, and Woods have been eyeing the balance of D-PETE positions in the U.S. market. However, what started as budding curiosity about just the supply-demand question of D-PETE positions in universities flourished into broader line of inquiry. We can only hope that what they have started will continue an on-going series of regular check-ups that deserve attention from the entire PETE community. This multifaceted research on D-PETE programs could not have come at better time. A close look at the state of affairs in D-PETE programs was in order (Rikard, Boyce, Ward, Parker, Sinclair, Goc Karp, et al., 2011). The recent collapse of the U.S. and global economies has put enormous strain on the financial health of colleges and universities, as well as school districts. Moreover, as state funding continues to shrink, universities systems (have to) are becoming increasingly entrepreneurial (a euphemism for corporate) in maintaining semblance of financial health. For example, every college/university has Research that traditionally aims to support faculty research endeavors. At my own institution, that office has been absorbed into the Office of Knowledge Enterprise Development.