Constructing "Kin" Citizens: An Investigation of Canadian Kinesiology Programs Mission and Vision Statements 2022 PDF

Quest ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: www.tandfonline.com/journals/uqst20 Constructing “Kin” Citizens: An Investigation of Canadian Kinesiology Programs’ Mission and Vision Statements Sarah Barnes, Yuka Nakamura & Parissa Safai To cite this article: Sarah Barnes, Yuka Nakamura & P...

Quest ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: www.tandfonline.com/journals/uqst20 Constructing “Kin” Citizens: An Investigation of Canadian Kinesiology Programs’ Mission and Vision Statements Sarah Barnes, Yuka Nakamura & Parissa Safai To cite this article: Sarah Barnes, Yuka Nakamura & Parissa Safai (2022) Constructing “Kin” Citizens: An Investigation of Canadian Kinesiology Programs’ Mission and Vision Statements, Quest, 74:4, 344-358, DOI: 10.1080/00336297.2022.2101495 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/00336297.2022.2101495 Published online: 20 Sep 2022. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 720 View related articles View Crossmark data Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=uqst20 QUEST 2022, VOL. 74, NO. 4, 344–358 https://doi.org/10.1080/00336297.2022.2101495 Constructing “Kin” Citizens: An Investigation of Canadian Kinesiology Programs’ Mission and Vision Statements a Sarah Barnes , Yuka Nakamurab, and Parissa Safai b a Experiential Studies in Community and Sport, Cape Breton University, Sydney, Nova Scotia, Canada; b Kinesiology and Health Science, York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada ABSTRACT KEYWORDS The purpose of this article is to explore how social forces related to the Kinesiology; Canadian corporatization of universities play out at the granular level of institu­ universities; corporatization tional mission and vision statements in the racialized context of of universities; mission statements Canadian Kinesiology. The stated aims of Canadian Kinesiology aca­ demic units (N = 36) were collected from their public-facing websites, and we conducted a critical discourses analysis of our evidence. We argue that mission and vision statements construct Kinesiology as an altruistic and impactful scholarly project and conceal the contested nature of health, scientific knowledge, and community engagement in the field. Careful analysis of the data, with particular attention paid to that which is unspoken, silenced or erased, highlights how these guiding declarations can renew the field’s underlying racial and colo­ nial logics. To conclude, we note instances when programs use institu­ tional statements to unsettle dominant scripts and open possibilities to work toward a more progressive and just Kinesiology. Although rare in university settings prior to the late 1980s, mission and vision statements have become much more widespread in an era of escalating managerialism and market­ ization (Sauntson & Morrish, 2010). At their most basic, institutional statements such as mission or vision statements (generally defined as statements of what an organization does and what an organization wants to become, respectively) are both a form of self- identification and self-promotion or branding, and express “the fundamental reason why an organization exists” (Pierce & David, 1987 as quoted in Sauntson & Morrish, 2010, p. 76). More foundationally, however, mission and vision statements offer insight into the workings of discourse and productive forms of power within an organization. Though they may appear as standard practice among organizations, these formal statements are con­ stitutive of social relations and identities as they frame ways of thinking and acting in accordance with the complex agendas and priorities of the corporate university (Shear & Hyatt, 2015). In other words, and in the post-secondary educational context, such institu­ tional statements have politics (Ahmed, 2006, p. 106) and represent a type of “managerial squeeze” that involves the “straightening up” of academic programs so they appear more coherent and compelling within a consumerist education framework (De Peuter et al., 2007, p. 109). CONTACT Sarah Barnes [email protected] Experiential Studies in Community and Sport, Cape Breton University, 1250 Grand Lakes Road, Sydney, Nova Scotia B1P 6L2, Canada. This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article. © 2022 National Association for Kinesiology in Higher Education (NAKHE)  QUEST 345 The purpose of this article is to explore how social forces related to the corporatization of universities play out at the granular level of institutional mission and vision statements in the racialized context of Canadian Kinesiology. In Canada, the post-secondary sector is publicly funded and provincially regulated. In 2019, 1.4 million students were enrolled in Canadian universities, and the sector accounted for $38 billion in direct expenditures and employed approximately 310,000 academic and non-academic staff (Universities Canada, n. d.). Kinesiology is a field with an ongoing colonial and racialized past (O’Bonsawin, 2017; Smith & Jamieson, 2017), and it continues to be implicated in the scientific construction and naturalization of bodily and social hierarchies, especially as they relate to the perfor­ mance of fit, healthy, and sporty bodies (Douglas & Halas, 2013; Gauthier et al., 2021; Joseph & Kriger, 2021). Our analysis stems from a larger multi-stage project that analyzes how social and economic pressures in higher education and Canadian society are trans­ forming the field of Kinesiology. We want to better understand the types of citizen-subjects produced through post-secondary Kinesiology programs and how the constitution of these “Kin citizens” is linked to the reproduction of a broader asymmetrical social order. While the concept of citizenship is widely debated and defined, we draw on Isin’s (2009) relational description of citizenship as: “a dynamic (political, legal, social and cultural but perhaps also sexual, aesthetic and ethical) institution of domination and empowerment that governs who citizens (insiders), subjects (strangers, outsiders) and abjects (aliens) are and how these actors are to govern themselves and each other in a given body politic” (p. 371). Within the contours of domination, empowerment, and governance, we can locate “acts of citizenship” wherein individuals “constitute themselves as citizens or, better still, as those to whom the right to have rights is due” (Isin & Nielsen, 2008, p. 2). Such acts challenge the idea of citizenship as simply an issue of membership in a particular group, as Isin (2009) argues: “Being a citizen almost always means being more than an insider – it also means to be one who has mastered modes and forms of conduct that are appropriate to being an insider” (p. 371). While giving further lift to critical citizenship studies as a disciplinary area, such analysis has been influential in advancing a more nuanced understanding of citizen­ ship (Isin, 2008), as mainstream discourse too often constructs “the citizen” as gender-, class-, or race-neutral (Isin & Turner, 2007; Jubas & Jubas, 2006; Walby, 1994). For scholars interested in marginality/marginalized identity, political struggle and citizenship, there is a need to disrupt thinking that posits citizenship as an “ultimately inclusive project” (Turner, 2016, p. 142) as such normative understandings readily work through the existing co-ordinates of liberal and colonial agendas: “For subjects and abjects becoming a citizen means either adopting modes and forms of being an insider (assimilation, integration, incorporation) or challenging these modes and forms and thereby transforming them (identification, differentiation, recognition)” (Isin, 2009, p. 372). Undoubtedly, there are many forces and factors that go into the creation of Kin citizens within post-secondary settings. However, in this article, we focus our attention to the powerful frames in Kinesiology’s political project afforded by an academic program’s declared mission and vision statements. As will be explored below, the majority of the mission and vision statements we examined were formulaic, citing generic commitments to enhancing health and some combination of research, teaching, and community-impact aims as both the measures of and methods by which the academic unit and its people (i.e., students, staff, researchers, and instructors) can and should be understood by others as successful. On one hand, there is nothing particularly wrong with such stated aims. 346 S. BARNES ET AL. However, on the other hand, we suggest that Kinesiology programs assert depoliticized versions of themselves and the field through such statements. As historical and political valences are stripped away, Kinesiology programs build up and normalize an image of an altruistic, impactful, yet cultureless and apolitical scholarly project where underlying social inequalities are rendered inevitable. Prospective and current students, faculty, staff, and alumni are oriented to corporatized conceptions of health, knowledge, pedagogy, and community engagement through these mission and vision statements and are encouraged to take up this positionality as part of their becoming Kinesiology insiders and morally good Kin citizens (cf., Brown, 2006). Whereas most of the mission and vision statements evaluated in this study demonstrated this stance, we did see potential for resistance as a few programs used their vision statements to unsettle standard corporate scripts and open possibilities to work toward a more progressive and just Kinesiology. In what follows, we discuss some of the key developments involved in the corporatization of the Canadian post-secondary sector, as well as an overview of the racialized nature of Kinesiology and our methodological approach. Following this, we highlight three themes that emerged from our analysis: kinesiology as an altruistic (i.e., helping) field (Lawson, 2016); the dominance of instrumental conceptions of knowledge and leader creation; and community impact. In the discussion, we unpack some of the concealed logics at work in departmental mission statements and highlight instances when programs resist dominant narratives in their guiding declarations. To conclude, we consider why Kinesiology remains such challenging terrain as corporatized forces in higher education continuously attempt to minimize the impacts of history and culture in academic studies of health, movement, and flourishing. Corporatized universities Corporatization refers to a process that involves the ascension of business interests and free- market ideologies within public institutions and, in the case of universities, this process fundamentally overhauls existing mandates to better serve and align with the private sector (Brownlee, 2015). In Canada, as elsewhere, the steady corporatization of universities has been enmeshed with the rollback of the Welfare state and broader neoliberal reforms that favor financialization, privatization, and market-oriented discourses of personal responsi­ bility (Cote et al., 2007; Turk, 2000). As these dynamics coalesce and unfold in university settings, they shift “the nature of academic practice” and “instill new beliefs, affects and desires in students, faculty and administrators” (Shear & Hyatt, 2015, p. 2). The corporatization of the Canadian post-secondary education sector coincides with the emergence of a global knowledge economy that repositions universities as key sites of economic growth (Brownlee, 2015). Knowledge is transformed into a “raw material” (Slaughter et al., 2004, p. 17) or a form of capital (cf., Olssen & Peters, 2005) that can be exploited for profit and economic development. Knowledge that best aligns with the market and holds the potential to create profits via lucrative intellectual property agreements garners the greatest wealth, influence, and even star power on campuses (Hackett, 2014; Martin, 2016; Reuter, 2021; Slaughter et al., 2004). New privatized streams of revenue and the commercialization of knowledge are tightly connected with new modes of faculty management (e.g., an escalating audit, meritocratic- laden culture that requires faculty to prove that they are maximizing performance/output),  QUEST 347 as well as a growing amount of precariously employed non-tenured faculty take up teaching responsibilities in the corporate university (Brownlee, 2015; Martin, 2016). Productivity and efficiency are routinely centered as essential in a centralized administrative apparatus that elevates performance metrics and competitive rankings (Reuter, 2021). There is also an increase in such things as work-based or work-integrated learning curricular initiatives, placements, internships, accelerators, or entrepreneurship labs across many Canadian campuses, with the latter often routinely captured under the umbrella term of experiential learning and often in response to government calls and funding of greater workplace preparation programs for students (Lincoln, 2011; see also Stirling & Pretti, 2022; Stirling et al., 2016). Increasing amounts of student debt, rising tuition fees, and lagging financial aid in the corporate university can further complicate this situation and naturalize the presence of work-readiness aims on campus (Education For All, 2021, p. 14; Zaloom, 2019). This, of course, does not tell the whole story or capture how minoritized groups are disproportio­ nately impacted by these patterns, or illuminate the experiences of those who continue to be shut out of an unaffordable post-secondary sector (Dei, 2016). Given these trends, it is not surprising that the reparative capacity of the university is currently being called into question by some (Baldwin, 2021; Williams, 2012). Despite promises of equity and social mobility, key ideas that have fueled historic efforts to remake and expand the institution (Henry et al., 2017), critics argue that corporate universities manage, rather than dismantle, a range of social disparities and injustices in our society (Baldwin, 2021). As Hampton (2020) explains, Canadian universities are often eager to promote initiatives that foreground ideas of social progress, and yet continue to replicate Eurocentric knowledge and settler-colonial logics; in other words, social dynamics that serve the interests and worldviews of dominant groups in Canadian society. These ideas and tensions serve as the backdrop against which we begin our examination of the context of Kinesiology as an academic program in the post-secondary education sector in Canada. Kinesiology in Canada The majority of Kinesiology programs in Canadian universities are comprised of research­ ers, instructors, and students interested in the study of human movement and its implica­ tions for health, human performance, and quality of life (Elliott, 2007). As a multidisciplinary field that spans across natural or bio-sciences to behavioral sciences to the social sciences and humanities, Kinesiology holds potential to active body and categories like health and wellbeing as both biological realities and socio-cultural expressions, and in doing so, to create more complex portraits of life (Andrews et al., 2013). However, the promises of a pluralistic Kinesiology are conditioned, and often enfeebled, by a variety of forces related to the growing market-like audit and accountability structures that govern universities today (Andrews et al., 2013). The atomization of Kinesiology into competing subdisciplines often has the unfortunate effect of entrenching an “epistemolo­ gical hierarchy that privileges positivist over postpositivist, quantitative over qualitative, and predictive over interpretive ways of knowing” (Andrews et al., 2013, p. 338). Colleagues from different disciplinary domains are often pitted against each other and asked to struggle for limited resources, space, influence, and prestige (Vertinsky & Weedon, 2017). Further, the privileging of scientific and economic productivity, and the elevation of bioscientific 348 S. BARNES ET AL. frameworks and matching discourses of personal responsibility, are worrisome because they marginalize critical and historical approaches and displace questions about power, oppres­ sion, and justice (Andrews et al., 2013; Vertinsky & Weedon, 2017). While ostensibly a field devoted to enhancing health, performance, and quality of life, Kinesiology is also embedded within historical and contemporary biomedical projects of racial and social difference. The field has largely trusted in post-racial mythologies and “stories of harmonious integration where sport serves as a meritocracy and level playing field” (Smith & Jamieson, 2017). Particular arrangements of power/knowledge have had the effect of both elevating health and wellbeing as highly desirable, and yet also obscuring how these categories are unevenly available in capitalist, gendered, racial, and colonial infra­ structures (Douglas & Halas, 2013; Joseph & Kriger, 2021; King & Weedon, 2021). Research investigating the workings of whiteness and white privilege confirm the field is shaped by a variety of social dynamics that leave “the culture, experiences, emotions, and behaviors of whites” unmarked, centered, and naturalized (Nachman et al., 2021, p. 2). White social dominance is maintained in Kinesiology through a variety of practices including: (a) racial asymmetries in faculty and student compositions; (b) research and teaching that ignores the impact of history and power; and (c) student cultures that can leave racialized students of color feeling isolated, devalued, and their life experiences over­ looked (Douglas & Halas, 2013; Nachman et al., 2021). There have been urgent (and repeated) calls for faculty, students, and alumni to acknowledge how Kinesiology can replicate structural power imbalances that undermine the health, liberty, and longevity of many in Canadian society (Joseph & Kriger, 2021). Some have challenged themselves to reimagine Kinesiology and the categories of health, wellness, and physical activity around social justice and a decolonizing ethics (Gauthier et al., 2021; Joseph & Kriger, 2021), but desires to transform the field often conflict with economic priorities and practices that shape life on corporatized campuses. Amid these complexities, how do Kinesiology pro­ grams in Canada then construct themselves – and by extension, their faculty, staff, and students – within and through their mission and vision statements, and what are the political implications of their statements? Method: Critical discourse analysis With a view to illuminating how mission and vision statements are political declarations that foster specific conceptualizations of Kinesiology and the social world, we set out to create a comprehensive map of these academic units’ statements (e.g., mission, vision, mandate, core values), where available. Volunteer undergraduate research assistants col­ lated data by identifying the mission, vision, mandate, and/or core values (explicitly stated as such) on publicly available departmental websites, cutting and pasting the text into an Excel file, and then saving a PDF of each website so as to retain the original context of the organizational statements. Unlike the United States, Canada does not rely on an opt-in post-secondary classifica­ tion framework (e.g., Carnegie classifications), and nor is this sector subject to federal regulation or oversight. However, the field of Kinesiology is itself regulated, albeit unevenly, on a national scale by the Canadian Council of University Physical Education Association (CCUPEKA). Currently there are twenty fully accredited Kinesiology or Human Kinetic programs in Canada, based on minimum standards around degree  QUEST 349 structure, breadth and depth of curriculum, and faculty complement (CCUPEKA, n.d.). For this study, we expanded our inclusion criteria beyond CCUPEKA’s parameters to include all universities in Canada that self-identify as offering Kinesiology degrees on their public-facing websites (N = 36). This decision was motivated by a desire to capture three new Kinesiology programs that have been established in past five years but have not undergone the lengthy accreditation process associated with CCUPEKA membership. We excluded programs that self-described as Sport Studies, Sport Leadership, or Physical Education. We analyzed our data using critical discourse analysis, and more specifically, we adopted Fairclough’s (2010; see also Markula & Pringle, 2006) three-dimensional conceptualization of discourse as text, discursive practice, and social practice. Critical discourse analysis permits scholars to understand how ideologies function through discourse to reproduce relations of power and domination. This three-step process or framework assumes texts are social and cannot be understood in isolation. Analysis depends on viewing texts in relation to their broader context. We specifically tried to situate the patterns we found in our data within broader understandings of neoliber­ alism, the corporatization of universities, and the context of Kinesiology that we have outlined so far. Two team members, working independently, examined the data to identify explicit instances of discourse, including its features, organization, vocabulary, grammar, and text structure. Then, they conducted an intertextual analysis by placing emergent themes and discourses to their broader social context and comparing pre­ liminary analysis for points of convergence. The process was repeated twice, gaining greater depth each time. Finally, the entire research team scanned the data for themes and linked emerging ideas to “ideological effects and hegemonic processes” (Blommaert & Bulcaen, 2000, p. 449) of discourse. This step included attention to how discourses are represented, to better understand “struggles over normativity, attempts at control, and resistance against regimes of power” (Blommaert & Bulcaen, 2000, p. 449). The recursive nature of our analysis developed as we moved between the data, our coded themes, and an exploration of relevant discourses. We also revisited our data and coding, interpreting, and trying to make sense of what was being silenced or erased. As Reuter (2021) explains, by considering the “over-arching message(s) and objective(s) and by drawing them out vis-à-vis the silences,” (p. 12) we were able to reflect on the implications of these statements for faculty, students, and community members. Before we present our results, two caveats are necessary. The first addresses the naming practices we employ in our analysis. In our desire to avoid a discussion that devolves into a conversation about “good” or “bad” Kinesiology programs, we have decided to keep program and school names anonymous to steady our focus on the rhetorical moves, patterns, and omission that systematically emerge across the field of Kinesiology in Canada. Second, we purposefully do not differentiate between mission and value state­ ments. Rather, we allow these institutional statements to exist in a messy and entangled way that mirror the corporate logics we intend to analyse. As will be discussed in greater depth below, our analysis highlighted three themes: (a) Kinesiology as an altruistic helping field; (b) the dominance of instrumental conceptions of knowledge and leader creation; and (c) community impact. 350 S. BARNES ET AL. Results: Laying claim to building health, knowledge, leaders, and community Like Lorusso et al. (2018), we found that just over half, or twenty of the thirty-six programs we analyzed, provided clear and accessible institutional statements on their program website. We will return to this finding later in our discussion. For now, we want to highlight the patterns – and the striking uniformity and homogeneity that exists – when institutional statements are present on program websites. Through sanitized, gender- and race-neutral language, Kinesiology is routinely framed as an altruistic and action-oriented field that positively impacts students, communities, and Canadian society. The veneer of scientific authority and appeals to objectivity and rationality present Kinesiology as if it is free from cultural bias and detached from the political realm. Feminist scholars have long argued that scientific and engineering fields often draw prestige from presenting as value- and context- free and occupying a “culture of no culture” (see also Subramaniam, 2021; Traweek, 1992, p. 162). Nevertheless, these fields are directly shaped by race, gender, class, sexuality, and nationality and operate with their own scripts, expectations, conventions (Subramaniam, 2021; Traweek, 1992). Some of these cultural scripts become visible in mission and vision statements. Programs identified virtually identical priorities around health promotion, knowledge creation, teaching, leadership, and community engagement, and mirrored one another in the presentation of these priorities as a formula for success for those within and coming through the program. Eighteen of the twenty programs identified their mission as enhancing, promoting, or advocating for physical activity, health, wellness, and quality of life. Kinesiology is presented as a discipline focused on improving “quality of life,” “benefitting people, communities, and society,” and developing the next generation of leaders and healthcare providers. One program boldly defined its vision as “physical and mental wellness for all,” while another describes its vision as a “healthier world.” Health is positioned as if it is self-evident, and inherently good and desirable, with little to no recognition that it remains elusive and “unevenly attainable” for many in violent social formations of the present (Joseph & Kriger, 2021, p. 1). One program notes they deliver an education that specifically equips students for “various health related careers.” Fifteen of twenty programs referred to “knowledge” in institutional statements and used instrumental terms such as “discover,” “investigate,” “advance,” “generate,” “translate,” “mobilize,” “disseminate,” and “apply” to describe their knowledge creation activities and ambitions. One program, for instance, describes their mission to “advance and translate knowledge about sport, physical activity and human health across the lifespan” while another explained that they: “create and share the best understandings and applications of physical activity, sport and recreation for the public good.” The imagined scales of impact vary from the local, to the provincial, to the national, and the international. Knowledge that is “practical” and “applied,” and derived from experiences outside of traditional classrooms, is especially valuable as it is thought to lead to relevant skills and competencies. Fourteen programs identified teaching and learning as central to the objectives of their departments. Programs selected words like “transformative,” “effective,” “inspiring,” and “student centered” to describe the educational process. In addition to making explicit mention of faculty members who are “global leaders” and “inter­ nationally recognized,” several programs highlighted the value of “life-long learning” and suggest that enrolling in Kinesiology opens up doors to a career. Several  QUEST 351 programs distinguished themselves from peer institutions by highlighting their ability to offer students “diverse” learning experiences that are both theoretical and applied in nature and take place in traditional classrooms and other settings. While compe­ tencies such as critical thinking and problem solving are noted in a few programs, there is greater emphasis on who the prospective student becomes: a leader. Seven programs also described leadership as either a vital student outcome or as the central role or aspiration of the program itself. There is a strong emphasis on creating “leaders of tomorrow” who have the “right” priorities. As Blum and Ullman (2012) note, “our educational institutions have become reterritorialized with business-drive imperatives that legitimize the symbolic capital of entrepreneurial and individualized selves” (p. 373). With regards to both the creation of knowledge and the creation of leaders, we see quite a strong entrenchment of the market mantra with emphasis on individual advancement and action in the corporatized and neoliberal post-secondary education market (Blum & Ullman, 2012). Eleven program mission statements clearly identified the significance of “community” and “community engagement” as a high priority. In some of the programs, Kinesiology leaders are imagined in terms of being “community advocates” or “community health and physical activity champions.” Sometimes this sentiment was expressed in terms of having a “societal impact.” In other instances, programs directly say they want to “actively” work with communities and seek to build “healthy communities and healthy lives.” The use of modifiers including “meaningful,” “active,” and “committed” to suggests these relationships might be built on reciprocity and may avoid an extractive approach. These appeals rest on the ideals of equality, tolerance, and anti-discrimination, principles that central to dominant constructions of Canadian identity (Darnell et al., 2012). However, notice that there is a powerful underlying individualizing logic at play as the majority of Kinesiology depart­ ments represent themselves as if they “empower” or “inspire” people and communities by “helping them to help themselves” (Reuter, 2021) to become more aware and responsible for health and daily performance. Discussion: The disciplinary politics and silences of mission statements Political theorist Wendy Brown (2006) states that “depoliticization involves removing a political phenomenon from comprehension of its historical emergence and from a recognition of the powers that produce and contour it” (p. 15). Mission and vision statements in the corporatized university adopt the tactics of depoliticization by extracting academic programs, rationales, and impacts from their historical emergence and social context. The elision of culture and history in the mission and vision statements permit Kinesiology to present as an apolitical and cultureless project while at the same time producing ideas about society, social change, and citizenship that benefit the interests of corporate universities. For instance, while programs we studied are intent upon creating, applying, and sharing health and physical activity knowledge with students and the public, they avoided any mention of how health and the broader social order are related. There is little acknowledgment of how systematic issues like whiteness, colonialism, racism, and poverty impact health status. By default, then, health inequities are made to appear as if they are naturally, as opposed to historically, occurring. Such views erase how the fit, healthy, and “moving body is embedded in webs of climate, capital, and coloniality” (King & Weedon, 2021, p. 134). Our findings align 352 S. BARNES ET AL. with Joseph and Kriger’s (2021) observation that Kinesiology has a hidden colonial curricu­ lum. In other words, knowledge generated and taught in the field often emphasizes assimilat­ ing human-centric lessons about health, fitness, and athletic bodies that privilege normative white, able-bodied ideals and enlightenment beliefs about self-mastery and optimization (see also Azzarito et al., 2017). Read against the backdrop of the meritocratic, corporate university more broadly, these dynamics can reinforce victim-blaming and obscure the unequal social context in which health and performance are embedded. To be clear, our critique is not that health is woven so readily into these programs’ mission statements but that the versions of health presented in these mission statements are narrowly defined by and tethered to neoliberal, Eurocentric constructions of health as determined almost singularly by an indivi­ dual’s behavioral or lifestyle choices to the neglect of the social production of ill health. In this way, we see a re/production of healthist ideology (cf., Crawford, 1980) that aligns extremely well with an individualistic, moralizing, and technicist health promotion agenda that has become de rigueur in many, if not all, Kinesiology programs in Canadian universities (Safai, 2016). Neoliberal constructions of health and the stimulation of healthist ideology serve well in a corporatized context as these phenomena all thrive on market-centric narratives and practices of personal responsibility Relatedly, sanitized and simplified conceptions of health, evacuated of history and politics, help to conceal what Dei (2016) refers to a far-reaching “crisis of knowledge” in the racialized, corporate university (p. 29). Knowledge can be fetishized and a logic – not of scarcity but of abundance – unfolds as the production of more and more knowledge becomes a panacea for social ills (Olssen & Peters, 2005). Knowledge is imagined as if it – as opposed to people or collectives – is naturally imbued with the capacity to advance personal and social wellbeing (Olssen & Peters, 2005). In this narrative, a lack of knowledge is the true obstacle to social change. But notice, not only is knowledge elevated, but it is also narrowed in institutional statements. For instance, there is no mention of the fierce debates that characterize the field or conflicting beliefs about the value of biomedical models of health and physical activity. Scientific enterprises have long been shaped by notions that western scientific rationalities are integral to human progress (Harding, 2008). Such celebratory narratives can obscure questions about how Kinesiologists contribute to the social problems they study. The elevation of knowledge, especially instrumental and commercially viable forms, also deflects attention away from discussions about how chal­ lenges related to health and physical activity might be alleviated through other collective actions, including the redistribution of resources and power. Many of the programs we surveyed aimed to be student centered and implicitly relied on an institutional and cultural backdrop where Canadian identities and sensibilities are venerated for commitments to multi-culturalism, tolerance, and inclusion (Darnell et al., 2012). Yet, these same programs dislocate the social identities of students in their mission and vision statements. Not only are students treated as consumers, they also regarded as “universal learners without identities of race, class, gender, sexuality, [or dis]ability” (Dei, 2016, p. 5). In other words, students are constructed as empty vessels or blank canvases who can be shaped and molded into professional, entrepreneurial leaders. But by failing to mark the social identities of students, there is a default to a universalizing whiteness, and by extension, Kinesiology programs infer that social identities are unimportant to the process of learning (Dei, 2016). This denial is a type of violence. It furnishes a culture that can be especially hostile for students of color who are asked to learn in environments that are  QUEST 353 shaped by unacknowledged forms of white social dominance (Joseph & Kriger, 2021; Nachman et al., 2021). Research with students in Kinesiology programs in Canadian universities who identify as racial minorities confirms that experiences of alienation, discomfort, and both overt and subtle forms of discrimination are common; these students also highlight the omission of race, gender, and sexuality in core curriculums and percep­ tions that most faculty are underprepared to discuss such topics (Nachman et al., 2021). Paradoxically, as programs announce that they are equipped to create tomorrow’s leaders, they seem to lose sight of a rapidly changing Canadian society. How is it possible to imagine that students who are not well-versed in power, colonialism, and racism are adequately ready to serve as health and physical activity leaders in a settler-colonial, multicultural Canada? How can one exercise leadership in this context without changing, or at the very least, being able to critique existing power structures? As it turns out, there is a lot of ambiguity about what counts as career preparation not only in Kinesiology, but in university settings more broadly (Cowan, 2021) with little (or no) consensus as to what makes students work-ready. What is consistent is how mission and vision statements highlight the potential for Kinesiology to produce highly qualified workers who will be well positioned to have professional careers. Once the realm of a selective few, being a professional has now expanded to many more occupations, including those in the fitness, health, and sport sectors. Weeks (2011) explains, being professional and acting in a professional fashion encompasses more than prescribed conduct: “As an ideal of worker subjectivity, this [‘being professional’] requires not just the performance of a role but a deeper commitment of the self, an immersion in and identification not just with work, but with work discipline” (p. 75). The process of becoming a professional usually involves the affirmation and uncritical acceptance of productivity and work ethic (Weeks, 2011). The managerial discourses upon which professionalism hinge can have the effect of depoliticizing work. When one’s work is seen as a private, moral imperative linked to “individual growth, self-fulfillment, social recognition, and status,” it helps to rationalize the long hours and personal sacrifices that many are expected to make (Weeks, 2011, p. 11). An accent on career-readiness can accelerate the production of a highly disciplined, corporatized workforce and reinforce the idea that the ultimate purpose of an education is strategic personal develop­ ment and targeted professional advancement (Giroux, 2010). Of course, professionalization does not start and stop with Kinesiology students; this process of subjectification extends into the ranks of the professoriate. It is well documented that escalating demands for knowledge, knowledge translation, and teaching have major implica­ tions for faculty members, and those who aspire to their ranks. Ironically, in a department that is devoted to health, the wellbeing of faculty members may be progressively undermined as they confront overwhelming pressure to produce. A high performance academic culture promotes the ideal faculty member as one who is endlessly productive and self-sufficient, no matter the circumstances (Reuter, 2021, p. 11). These mounting expectations are on top of the additional labor that is often performed by faculty who identify as racial minorities, a group that represents just 17% of the professoriate in Canadian Kinesiology programs (Nachman et al., 2021). More often than not, minoritized faculty members shoulder additional mentoring of racialized students of color, and they are often called upon to work on diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives (Ahmed, 2006). The mingling of health and performance discourses within Kinesiology accentuate responsible and resilient faculty members and conceal the corporate university’s role in fostering deteriorating, and uneven, work conditions in the post-secondary sector (Reuter, 2021). 354 S. BARNES ET AL. As a climate of publish or perish reigns on corporatized campuses, it not only hastens the reach of hegemonic health and physical activity knowledge, it also potentially intensifies other troubling research practices, some of which include the inclination to adopt extractive approaches when working with communities (Dei, 2016). It is crucial to be cautious and to examine how seemingly innocent or benign expressions around community-engagement can reproduce the status quo. Feminist, queer, critical race, Indigenous and others working at the nexus of power, knowledge, and social change have long struggled to dismantle the ivory tower (Harding, 2008). There are important and ongoing efforts to work alongside historically marginalized communities and to expand what counts as legitimate knowledge and who is permitted to know in Kinesiology and Physical Education (see Hodge & Harrison, 2021; Simon et al., 2021). There is a chance to repair historical patterns that have disadvantaged minoritized groups by making them either hyper-visible, or alternatively, marginalized or excluded in Kinesiology research (Smith & Jamieson, 2017). Yet within the context of a corporate university, “the language we think of as critical can easily lend itself to the very techniques of governance we critique” (Ahmed, 2006, p. 108). Some of the programs we studied mentioned “meaningful partnerships” and “collabora­ tions.” But the majority do not. The community that Kinesiology purports to serve, is rarely, if ever, defined. Community exists in the abstract as an unraced, degendered, and largely ahistorical entity; despite some brief and unexplained references to “diversity” or a “culturally diverse” atmosphere in some programs. One of the dangers here is that the community is implicitly rendered through well-rehearsed colonial scripts and “gestures of rescue, sympathy, and occupation” (Murphy, 2015, p. 722). Without critical attention to power and history, there is a risk of creating Kinesiologists who go out into the world and mirror the “muscular missionaries” and paternalistic health reformers of earlier eras (Vertinsky & Ramachandran, 2019, p. 363). While espousing the virtues of community engagement, Kinesiology largely leaves intact individualizing rhetoric that morally encourages communities to help themselves. In other words, Kinesiology is not guided by a desire to build multi-issue social movements that strategically challenge the status quo and work toward more progressive possibilities in health and physical culture. Conclusion: Beyond standardized missions, visions, and a formula for success Contrary to the more standardized mission and vision statements we have highlighted so far, we feel it is critical to highlight how several programs presented more expansive declarations about their collective commitments, sometimes by creating additional value statements that they layered on top of their stated vision and mission. These added layers often put Kinesiology into historical and social context; for example, one program not only highlighted the significance of learning but also of “unlearning” the common sense that has been internalized and naturalized in a patriarchal, fat-phobic, ableist, settler- colonial society. This historicizing is strange-making and politicizes the social and health inequities upon which Kinesiology is built. Instead of focusing narrowly on what kinds of workers or leaders they will produce, some of the most captivating statements focus on the type of environments and communities they want to build. For instance, one program embraces a “multi-faceted mission” that includes supports and opportunities in athletics and co-curricular physical activity for all students across the campus. Another program describes their mission, vision, and value statements as “living documents” that demand  QUEST 355 daily commitments and action. In other words, their institutional statements outline the actions and change that they will collectively undertake. This same program considers how collegiality, work-life balance, the principles of sustainability and equity are funda­ mental to the creation of settings that welcome and value all people. They collectively identify key values that inform their mission such as “democratic decision making,” “active listening,” “consensus building,” “equal distribution of workload,” and “valuing colleagues.” While the aim to develop one’s full potential in personal, academic, and professional domains are noted, the program’s institutional statements concentrate on the environment and relationships therein that will foster this change and the work that they must collectively commit to. In this article, we have rejected the idea that mission and vision statements are evidence of a benign, perfunctory governance or a simple branding exercise. Rather, we have attempted to show how institutional statements (and their silences) are constitutive of faculty, students, and communities that possess particular cognitive and political commit­ ments. The current formula for success involves stripping away history and culture from the field. But by papering over history and culture, conventional mission and vision statements attempt to do the impossible: to make Kinesiology a cultureless, politics-free academic discipline. Yet, our findings show that while Kinesiology constructs itself as an impactful helping discipline (Lawson, 2016), its rationales and aims largely resonate with conversative forces and political formations that affirm white privilege, neoliberal individualism, and corporate values. Against this backdrop, ideal Kin citizens emerge as professionals who are rendered rational, self-reliant, universal (re: white), entrepreneurial, and due to a combination of social privileges rarely named, well positioned to help “others.” While we have focused tightly on the context of Kinesiology in Canada, future research might adopt our approach and apply it in other national contexts, including the United States. As noted previously, only twenty of the thirty-six programs we surveyed provided clear and accessible institutional statements on their program websites. The absence of institutional statements from about half of the universities suggests that the corporatization of Canadian Kinesiology programs is an uneven and unfinished project. As noted just above, some programs seem to resist standardized mission statements. It is not that these statements are perfect or that they now need to be perfectly replicated by other Kinesiology programs. We find these compelling because they acknowledge culture and history in ways that challenge corporatized scripts while denaturalizing the inequalities that often organize the field. These statements permit different kinds of Kin citizens to emerge, ones that may be oriented toward under­ standing and changing social asymmetries and contributing to community-and social move­ ments-building. In moving away from generic scripts, Kinesiology may step closer to the urgent of work of imagining collective ways to address health and physical activity inequities in a moment of climate, political, and economic instability. Corporatized views of Kinesiology are impoverished, but they can be challenged and changed. Kinesiology programs can embrace more expansive and generative ideas and practices about what it means to be a field devoted to health and wellbeing in Canadian society. Disclosure statement No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s). 356 S. BARNES ET AL. Funding The work was supported by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada [grant number 435-2020-1267]. ORCID Sarah Barnes http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4815-890X Parissa Safai http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3945-9647 References Ahmed, S. (2006). Declarations of whiteness: The non-performativity of anti-racism. 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