Campus News

Recreation, leisure studies faculty rank third in nation

UGA ranks third in the number of authorships of journal articles and conference papers in the field of recreation and leisure studies according to an analysis of the 41 leading universities in North America published in the fall 2004 issue of the journal Leisure Sciences.

The rankings, listed in Edgar Jackson’s article “Individual and Institutional Concentration of Leisure Research in North America,” were determined by the number of ­authorships in the 1990s on the subject of leisure studies.

Jackson, a researcher at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, identified key characteristics of leisure scholars in North America and used patterns derived from data about publication activity for discussion about leisure studies research at an institutional level. He found that UGA had 192 authorships during the 1990s on leisure studies.

“The volume of authorship reflected in the number 3 ranking is generated by a relatively small faculty [five], albeit in collaboration with graduate students, and is clearly a statement that we are near the top of leisure studies programs in North America in research productivity, at least by the authorship standard,” says Douglas Kleiber, a College of Education professor and department head from 1989 to 2001.

The University of Waterloo ranked first in authorships with 318, while Texas A&M University was second with 203. The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign ranked fourth with 190 and Pennsylvania State University was fifth with 184.