Interested in a career such as physical therapy, occupational therapy, athletic training, chiropractic medicine, physician assistant, strength and conditioning, personal training, wellness, or dietetics? The Exercise Science major is ideal.
Our Exercise Science program – with its broad curriculum, numerous internship possibilities, and potential opportunities to conduct and present research at international and national conferences – will give you a competitive edge as you pursue your career goals!
“Our combination of curriculum, including exciting new rehabilitation courses, multiple internships experiences, and world-class research productivity make us uniquely suited to help students achieve their career goals.”
- Bill Ebben, Associate Professor of Exercise Science
Thanks to a generous gift from Lakeland University alum, Cliff Feldmann, the new Feldmann Exercise Science Laboratory includes an academic laboratory and a research laboratory outfitted with top-of-the-line equipment that includes:
This cutting-edge equipment allows interactive teaching of and research on force, power, balance, and muscle activation analysis during gait, sprinting, jumping, resistance training, and activities of daily living. These instruments can also be used to determine body composition, lung functioning, blood lactate accumulation, and metabolic capacity of athletic and untrained people.
Lakeland students and faculty have recently presented research at a variety of venues, including the conferences such as: International Society of Biomechanics in Sports, American College of Sports Medicine, National Athletic Trainer’s Association, National Strength and Conditioning Association, the American College of Sports Medicine-Midwest Regional Chapter, Wisconsin Physical Therapy Association, Wisconsin Chiropractic Association, Wisconsin Athletic Trainer’s Association, National Strength and Conditioning Association-Wisconsin State Chapter, and the International Conference on Sports Medicine, Physical Rehabilitation, and Physiotherapy.
In recent years, Exercise Science faculty and students have given 77 research presentations at professional conferences at the state, regional, national, and international levels. In order to present this research, students and faculty must complete a competitive submission process, often times against graduate student researchers. Lakeland University students presented the third most research of any institution in the world, at the 2020 International Society of Biomechanics in Sport, Annual Symposium.
Lakeland students are guided by Bill Ebben, Lakeland’s highly accomplished Associate Professor of Exercise Science. Ebben, who holds a doctorate from Marquette and two Master’s Degrees (UW-Madison and Northern Michigan), has a passion for guiding students into professional and graduate schools. Over the course of his career, he has helped over 500 students get into professional school programs, such as those in Doctorate in Physical Therapy, Masters in Occupational Therapy, Doctorate of Chiropractic Medicine, Masters in Athletic Training, and Physical Assistant programs as well as graduate programs in Exercise Science or related fields.
“From the moment students walk onto campus, we will work with them on a career development plan and help them understand all the things it takes to reach their goal,” Ebben says. “We will help them optimize their chance of being accepted into competitive professional or graduate schools, or obtain the career of their choice. We offer the prerequisite courses for acceptance into these programs, or to prepare students for a variety of other careers.”
