A little respect; it's time for universities to stop treating aquatics professionals as if they're second-class.(Perspectives)(acqutics professional training and treatment)

As an aquatics professional in a university setting, I sometimes feel like Rodney Dangerfield.

Indeed, when someone says "aquatics," most people have a tendency to think fisheries, oceanography, biology and natural resources. Even at the university where I teach, few understand what aquatics is about. This is troublesome, not to mention belittling, for faculty and students in aquatics-related degrees.

But this lack of respect also hurts the industry as a whole.

That's because even as colleges and universities reduced their aquatics educational programs in the '70s and '80s, more and more elaborate theme parks were coming onto the market. These new facilities were, and are, much more complex than the "boxes of water" they replaced.

The days of manually adding chemicals for routine sanitation are over. Technology has stepped in to feed chemicals, monitor water chemistry and even alert us to emergencies.

The operators running these facilities have changed as well. The local parent or off-season high school coach does not have sufficient training to appropriately supervise, conduct training and coordinate the operations of the new aquatics facility.

At the same time, today's litigious society means that highly trained aquatics professionals are needed more than ever to mitigate the conditions and procedures that often lead to patron and financial losses.