Rate My Professor Aaron Banks

Aaron Banks is Professor of Health and Exercise Science at Gustavus Adolphus College, where he joined the faculty in 2002 and was promoted to full professor effective 2015–2016. He previously served as Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Health and Exercise Science. Banks earned his BA from Concordia College in Moorhead in 1996, MS from Miami University in Ohio in 1998, and EdD from the University of Northern Colorado in 2001. He teaches courses such as First-Term Seminars on leisure and vital speeches, Health and Exercise Science 304, and serves as the contact faculty for the Health and Physical Education major and the AC2.COACH.MINOR Program. Banks has received Teaching and Learning Mini Grants for revisions to his courses and professional travel support from the Kendall Center, including for presentations at international conferences.

Banks' academic interests encompass best practices in Health and Physical Education teaching instruction and methodology, wellbeing behaviors of college-aged populations, historical and philosophical perspectives of global sport, effects of popular culture media on students, media-enhanced content impacts on attitudes, cognitive and psychomotor learning, and self-defense education. His publications include 'Developing student affect in a university self-defense course' (2006), 'The incorporation of self-defense as a unit of study within physical education' (2009), 'Refining self-defense instruction with visiting professionals' (pelinks4u.org, 2009), and 'Benefits of a Sport-specific Warm-up in Physical Education' (co-authored with Julian Reed and Rock Brathwaite). He has presented 'Five Steps to Developing Awareness and Prevention in Self-Defense Education' at the American Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance conference and 'Impact of Secularization on the Wellness of Americans: A Lutheran Perspective' at the HES International Leisure Conference in ChunCheon, Korea (2010). Banks received awards at the 2019 MNSHAPE Conference with alumna Kirsten Thisius Guentzel and the Lou Keller Award for outstanding service contributions by a college professor. His work supports student development in physical education pedagogy and coaching.