Dr. Glenn Roswal Promotes Special Olympics Programs Worldwide

2 September 2004 -- Dr. Glenn Roswal, Professor in the Department of HPER at Jacksonville State University, is leading a pioneer project in the expansion of Special Olympics programs in Asia, Eurasia, and Europe. Special Olympics is an international year round program of sports training and competition for people with mental retardation. More than 1 million athletes in over 150 countries train and compete in 26 Olympic-type summer and winter sports. The Special Olympics goal is to provide Special Olympics programs to an additional one million individuals.

The project is an innovative model university program based on the successful adapted physical education program at Jacksonville State University. The program creates a Special Olympics component within university physical education teacher training curricula. The Special Olympics university initiative began in 1999 with a four-day seminar in Warsaw, Poland for professors from eastern European/Eurasian universities. Subsequent seminars have been held in Groningen (Netherlands), Riga (Latvia), Kiev (Ukraine), Lisbon (Portugal), Carole (Italy), Ljubljana (Slovenia), Sarajevo (Bosnia-Hergevonia), Dublin (Ireland), Hamburg (Germany), Beijing (China), Shanghai (China), and Shenyang (China).

This summer, the project was presented at the Pre-Olympic Scientific Congress in Thessaloniki (Greece) and the International Conference on Physical Education in Hong Kong. Seminars are planned this fall in Bucarest (Romania), Sofia (Bugaria), and Paris (France).

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