When bad things happen to good people—accidents, illnesses, deaths of close
friends and loved ones, crime, and natural disasters—the
last things on the minds of victims of these events is leisure
and enjoyment. But in time, says Douglas Kleiber, finding sources
of enjoyment and resuming favored activities guide the course
of recovery.
Leisure may even be the context in which one uses the event
to make a pivotal change in life, to make more of it, and live
it in different ways than if the event had not occurred, says
Kleiber, a professor in the College of Education’s department
of recreation and leisure studies.
Working with graduate students and colleagues studying spinal
cord injury, crime victimization and other disruptive life events,
Kleiber has helped to draw attention to the subject of leisure
as an important domain of human experience and personal development.
Kleiber’s three decades of teaching and research in the
field were recognized this fall when he received the Theodore
and Franklin Roosevelt Award for Excellence in Recreation and
Park Research—the highest honor bestowed by the National
Recreation and Park Association.
Colleagues say his work has not only made an impact on the ways
in which leisure is conceptualized within a social-psychological
framework, but also has influenced the way an entire generation
of leisure scholars thinks about leisure’s role in terms
of identity formation, social psychology and health.
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Doug
Kleiber's work has not only made an impact on the ways in which leisure
is conceptualized within a social-psychological framework, but has
also influenced the way an entire generation of leisure scholars thinks
about leisure’s role in terms of identity formation, social
psychology and health.
