Professional Academic Societies: Stewards of the Future

Academic disciplines are vulnerable in the 21st century to the forces Barnett called supercomplexity, and we argue that academic societies such as the National Association for Kinesiology in Higher Education are especially well positioned to prepare 21st century scholars to respond to contemporary changes in the disciplines and in institutions of higher education. Academic societies can respond by helping to train scholars to be stewards of their disciplines, and the means by which disciplines will do so is to focus on the character of the scholar through the development and reinforcement of specific virtues. Following the arguments of Plato, Ernest Boyer, and Alasdair MacIntyre, we argue that the development of stewards can help kinesiology respond to contemporary issues.