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By Victoria Bourne

Professor Justin Haegele, director of the Center for Movement, Health & Disability in the Department of Human Movement Sciences and Special Education at ������, has been named a 2024 Outstanding Faculty Award winner by the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV).

He will receive his award, along with a $7,500 gift from the Dominion Energy Charitable Foundation, at a March 5 ceremony in Richmond, according to a Dec. 21 press release from SCHEV.

Out of 87 nominations received, 12 faculty members from around the state were named award recipients. Since the program was established in 1987, ������ faculty have earned 37 Outstanding Faculty Awards. Haegele is the fifth honoree from the Darden College of Education & Professional Studies.   

Haegele was sitting in a hotel in Liverpool, England, when he got the call.

"I was super confused,” he said, demurring at the notion that he carries the honor alone. “I work with a lot of great people … This isn’t really about me; it’s probably more about the program that I work in.”

The are the state’s highest honor for faculty at Virginia's public and private colleges and universities. These awards recognize superior accomplishments in teaching, research and public service. Nominees are selected by the institutions, reviewed by a panel of peers and chosen by a committee of leaders from the public and private sectors.

“It was cool to get the news, but there’s so much work to do,” he said, noting he got off the phone, told his wife, then got back to work reading chapters of a book he’s editing. 

Haegele, who came to ������ in 2015, is a scholar in the field of adapted physical activity, which includes adapted physical education for people with disabilities. School-based PE participation is a particular focus. He has amassed more than 245��peer-reviewed research publications, as well as several edited or authored texts. For the past three years, he has been named among the top 2% most-cited researchers in the world by Stanford University.

Tammi Dice, dean of the Darden College, said Haegele is a top scholar in the college, at the University and in his field. “He’s gained a substantial amount of recognition and is deeply impacting the field of adapted physical education,” she said.

Dice said Haegele offers a multitude of programming, from the , which allows disabled children to participate in athletics for free, to held in Alaska. That program is geared to help empower blind and visually impaired children to be physically active members of their schools and communities.

He has developed curriculum and has brought in millions of dollars in external grant funding to support his research and doctoral students, Dice said. He is also the graduate program director for the Health and Physical Education program in the Department of Human Movement Sciences and Special Education.  

“There’s a lot of people doing really cool stuff in this field, and I just wanted to be one of them.” - Justin Haegele

Haegele serves in leadership roles for two multi-university training collaboratives funded through the U.S. Department of Education and focused on training doctoral scholars in the field of adapted physical activity. He is director of (Collaboratory for Adapted Physical Education Research) and co-director of (Multi-Institution Mentorship Consortium), which together support about 43 students across partnering intuitions. He is also president of the North American Federation of Adapted Physical Activity, and the editor-in-chief for the peer-reviewed publications Quest (2022-2024) and Adapted Physical Activity Quarterly (2023-2025).

In 2021, Haegele was, placing him among a pool of candidates eligible to be matched to a host institution within three years.

“He really is a remarkable all-around scholar, instructor and public servant to the community and his profession,” Dice said. “He is doing extraordinary things across all areas of the academy.”

Haegele said he was introduced to the field of adapted physical activity as a master’s student at State University of New York College at Brockport. “I found out this field needed people to work hard within it,” the native New Yorker said, noting it appealed to his blue-collar, “go to work and work hard” upbringing.

“There’s a lot of people doing really cool stuff in this field, and I just wanted to be one of them,” added Haegele, who got his Ph.D. in adapted physical education from Ohio State University in 2015.    

At ������, Haegele has found few limitations to what’s possible. “People just say, ‘What do you think we can do?’ and then we figure it out,” he said. “There's no ceiling effect, which I think is fascinating.”    

In 2016, Haegele helped reenergize ������’s Ph.D. program in health and sport pedagogy, which had been dormant, and started recruiting Ph.D. students interested in adapted physical activity. He has eight such students who are fully supported by U.S. Department of Education grant funding.

The Center for Movement, Health & Disability was founded in July 2021, where core faculty and graduate students can engage in rigorous, interdisciplinary research and work toward a better understanding of health-enhancing behaviors. The center also provides in-person programs for children with disabilities and training for professionals within the department as well as outside agencies.

“We’re basically moving our program from one that hadn’t really existed to a premier adapted physical activity Ph.D. program in the country right now,” Haegele said.  “It’s been a really wild ride, to be honest with you.” 

������'s past SCHEV award winners:

2023

Khan Iftekharuddin, Batten College of Engineering and Technology

2021

Jennifer Fish, Women’s Studies

Ling Li, Information Technology and Decision Sciences

2020

Kent Carpenter, Biological Sciences

2018

Helen Crompton, Teaching and Learning

2017

Jennifer Michaeli, Engineering Technology

Anatoly Radyushkin, Physics

2016

Charles Hyde, Physics

2015

Gail Dodge, Physics

2014

Carolyn Rutledge, Nursing

2012

Steve Yetiv, Political Science

2011

Mark Butler, Biological Sciences

2009

Lawrence Hatab, Philosophy

Lawrence Weinstein, Physics

2008

Bridget Anderson, English

Shaomin Li, Business Management

2007

John Adam, Mathematics & Statistics

2006

Donald Zeigler, Political Science & Geography

Sharon Raver-Lampman, Early Childhood, Speech-Language Pathology, & Special Education

2005

Katharine Kersey, Early Childhood, Speech-Language Pathology, & Special Education

Cynthia Jones, Ocean Earth & Atmospheric Sciences

2004

Charles Wilson, English

2003

Sheri Reynolds, English

2002

Janet Peery, English

2001

Sushil Chaturvedi, Mechanical Engineering

Dwight Allen, Educational Curriculum & Instruction

2000

John Toomey, Music

1999

Daniel Dauer, Biological Sciences

Chris Drake, Political Science & Geography

1997

Dana Heller, English

1996

William Stanley, Engineering Technology

1995

Helen Rountree, Sociology & Criminal Justice

1994

Nancy Bazin, English

1993

Michele Darby, Dental Hygiene & Dental Assisting

1992

Gregory Selby, Mechanical Engineering

1991

Karen Polonko, Sociology & Criminal Justice