University Distinguished Professor and Chairperson Emerita Deborah L. Feltz received the 2024 Hetherington Award from the National Academy of Kinesiology.
“The Hetherington Award is the ultimate form of recognition and appreciation that an academic in the field of Kinesiology can receive,” said Paddy Ekkekakis, professor and chair of the Department of Kinesiology. “One might say that it is Kinesiology’s ‘Lifetime Achievement Award,’ reserved only for the very few who have had a truly profound and long-lasting positive impact on the discipline of Kinesiology. Deb Feltz certainly fits this description and has been a visionary leader not only for our department but also for the field of Kinesiology as a whole. All of us, her colleagues in the Department of Kinesiology, want to express our most heartfelt congratulations for this richly deserved honor.”
Career accomplishments
Feltz joined MSU in 1980 and served as the chair of the Department of Kinesiology from 1989-2012. After returning to a faculty role for several years, Feltz retired in 2017. Amongst her notable career moments, Feltz was inducted as a Fellow into the National Academy of Kinesiology (1992), served as its president (2001-02). According to a nomination letter, “one of [her] many notable contributions to the Academy and to kinesiology overall is her instrumental role in bringing to fruition the doctoral program evaluation process and its first review cycle in 2000-2004.” The most recent evaluation (2020-2022) placed MSU’s Kinesiology Ph.D. program at #11 in the nation.
In addition, Feltz served in many leadership capacities for the North American Society for the Psychology of Sport and Physical Activity, including as its president from 2007-08.
Feltz is known for her dedication to studying the relationship between self-efficacy and sport performance, which literally took research to new heights. She worked with NASA to help astronauts exercise more in space.
Other research highlights include co-creating a walking app incorporating a virtual partner to help walkers keep pace. She was the first to investigate what is known as the “Kohler effect” on motivation in video games. This phenomenon explains how groups impact performance or why team members with inferior abilities perform better in a group than they would by themselves.
She is also the co-author of “Self-Efficacy in Sport” (Human Kinetics, 2008).
Celebrated legacy, forward-thinking future
“Deborah Feltz is a difference maker in advancing the field of kinesiology based on her contributions to the [National Academy of Kinesiology], her programmatic lines of research, her graduate mentoring and her professional service,” said Maureen Weiss, who led the nomination of Feltz. Weiss, a 1981 alum of MSU’s Kinesiology doctoral program, is a professor emerita at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. Several Spartans – including alums and current/former faculty members – co-signed the nomination letter. “[Her] exemplary record of scholarship, leadership and service is indeed meritorious of this highest distinction from the National Academy of Kinesiology.”
In 2017, Feltz established an endowment that supports an ongoing lecture series: the Deborah L. Feltz Lecture on Sport, Exercise and Human Movement Science in Africa. The biennial series helps bring an African scholar from a higher education institution to present on a topic connected to physical education, exercise science or public health, among other related areas of study. The most recent iteration of this event was held on Oct. 9 and featured Andries Monyeki, a professor at the University of North-West, South Africa.
The Hetherington Award is named after Clark W. Hetherington, the association’s first-ever member and president. Impressively, several Spartan faculty and alums have received the honor, including Henry Montoye (1990), Wayne Van Huss (1991) and Vern Seefeldt (1998).
Feltz formally received the honor during the National Academy of Kinesiology’s annual meeting. MSU President Kevin M. Guskiewicz gave the opening Ranier and Julie Martens Invited Lecture on “Preparing Kinesiology’s future leaders with an ever-changing higher education landscape.”