Edgar Shields Jr.

Edgar (Ed) W. Shields, Jr., Ph.D. is a “Tar Heel” by birth and life-long resident of NC. His hometown is the small community of High Falls, near Robbins and Pinehurst-Southern Pines, and he received AB, MAT and PhD degrees from UNC-Chapel Hill.

His experiences as a professional in the field of education are broad. While a high school teacher of health, physical education and mathematics, he concomitantly coached track and field, football, basketball and baseball teams. For five years he was on the faculty of Mars Hill College, where he taught every course in his department’s curriculum at least once, while also serving as the Director of Intramural Sports and Director of the Required Physical Education Program. As a member of the college-wide Sub-Committee on Curriculum Development, he was a significant contributor to the implementation of a new and innovative liberal arts curriculum for all students. Chair of the Faculty Athletic Committee and Faculty Representative to the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), as well as other responsibilities to the Athletic Department, were other noteworthy positions held while at Mars Hill College.

Ed has been a member of the faculty at UNC-Chapel Hill since 1974, where he holds his current positions in the Department of Exercise & Sport Science (EXSS). Administratively his Carolina experiences have been quite diverse, ranging from Director of Intramural-Recreational Sports to Supervisor of Student Teachers to Associate Department Chair to Director of Graduate Studies and Director of Graduate Admissions. Currently holding the latter two positions, he directs Master of Arts degree programs in exercise physiology, sport administration and sport medicine. During his first two decades at Carolina he taught many different courses across several areas. Since the early to mid-1990s his teaching responsibilities have been in the area of Applied Statistics and Applied Research Methodology in the Master of Arts program, although he also continues to teach personal health, golf and alpine skiing in the undergraduate program during summers and the winter break. For over a decade he was chair of the department’s Human Subjects in Research Committee and the department’s Affirmative Action Officer, the latter a post he continues to hold. Ed is currently a member of the University’s Biomedical Institutional Review Board, as well as a member of the Faculty Council, the Administrative Board of the Graduate School and the Graduate School Fellowship Committee. Annually serving on a very large number of thesis committees Ed provides many individual consultations in the areas of research design and statistical analysis for students and some faculty as well. Holding Fellow status in the Research Consortium of AAHPERD, his research, publication and presentation record is as wide-ranging and extensive as his administrative and teaching positions. His research, publications and presentations range from motor learning to curriculum to measurement-evaluation to high school sports to intercollegiate sports, and other specific topics too numerous to list, but all within the broader areas of sport administration, sport medicine and exercise physiology. Ed’s primary area of scholarship, and the area in which he has made the greatest contribution, is best characterized by collaboration with both student and faculty researchers across disciplines – routinely collaborating with others in the planning, implementation, analysis and communication of research projects across the many sub-areas of EXSS. Subsequently he is author or co-author of publications in diverse journals. Examples include: The North Carolina Journal, Journal of Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance, Research Quarterly of AAHPERD, Sports Marketing Quarterly, Clinical Journal of Sports Medicine, Neurosurgery, Journal of Strength and Conditioning, Revista Paulista de Medicini, Brazilian Journal of Biological Sciences, Brazilian Journal of Physical Education and Sport, Brazilian Journal of Medical and Biological Research, Journal of Athletic Training, Adolescence, Journal of Sport Rehabilitation, Journal of Alcohol and Drug Education, Journal of Orthopedic and Sports Physical Therapy, Physical Therapy, Physician and Sportsmedicine, and the International Journal of Neuroscience. He is also author or coauthor of several book chapters. Ed has also made presentations at numerous professional conferences across the United States and in Europe. Invited lectures were given at the ESSEC Business School in Cergy-Pointoise, France, and the University of Paris-Dauphine. At a 2005 national conference he presented a paper that received the highest rating in the area of Sport Management. Ed also served as editor of the North Carolina Journal for five years, the professional journal for the NC Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance, and has been a member of editorial boards of other journals. He has received the Distinguished Service Award from the North Carolina High School Athletic Association and an “Outstanding Faculty Award” from the UNC Alumni Association and Division of Student Affairs.