Derek Van Rheenen, Ph.D.

dvr@berkeley.edu

510-642-0605

179 Chavez Student Center

Director

In addition to his responsibilities as Director, Derek coordinates the Degree Completion Program and the Faculty Athletic Fellows Program.

Background

Derek earned his Ph.D (1997) in Cultural Studies, his Master's degree (1993) in Education, and his undergraduate degree in Political Economy/German (1986), all from U.C. Berkeley. Derek joined the faculty in 1997. He has taught courses in American Studies and in the School of Education. He coordinates the Cultural Studies of Sport in Education (CSSE) M.A. Program in the Graduate School of Education. The M.A. investigates the ways in which institutionalized sport both conflicts with and complements the educational mission of American secondary and post-secondary schools.

Derek's research interests include children's play and games, literacy development in non-school settings, the connections between sports, culture and learning, and the history of intercollegiate athletics in the American university system.

His publications include Out of Bounds: When Scholarship Athletes Become Academic Scholars (book with Jabari Mahiri), "The Promise of Soccer in America: the Open Play of Ethnic Subcultures,"  "Boys Who Play Hopscotch: The Historical Divide of a Gendered Space," "Noncognitive Predictors of Student Athletes' Academic Performance" (with Herbert D. Simons) and "Academic Motivation and the Student Athlete" (with Herbert D. Simons and Martin V. Covington).

Derek has also participated in the production of several documentary films and recently completed a film for the Smithsonian Institution on the artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude's Running Fence Project in Marin and Sonoma counties of Northern California.

As an undergraduate at Berkeley, Derek earned Academic All-American honors and played professional soccer for several years following graduation. Derek was inducted into the CAL Athletic Hall of Fame in 2008.