Janet Wojcik

Professor Janet Wojcik joined the fitness craze during the1980s when leotards and leg warmers were popular.

She wasn’t an athletic kid or one who played a sport or took dance lessons.  “I walked to school pretty much K-12 and spent a lot of my summer days at the public pool,” Wojcik recalled, growing up in Buffalo, New York.

When one of her friends got a job where there was a corporate fitness center, she thought that would be a perfect way to combine her interests in health/medical with fitness. 

Wojcik already had an associate’s degree, so she decided to return to college at SUNY Buffalo to earn her bachelor’s degree in exercise science with the goal to work in corporate wellness. She worked in an internship at a spa resort and became certified through the American College of Sports Medicine as an exercise physiologist.

After working in fitness, she returned to college a third time for a master’s degree, again with the goal that she wanted to work in corporate wellness. “But in my master’s program at Canisius University working as a teaching assistant, I realized I really enjoyed being in academia with teaching and research,” Wojcik said. 

She decided to turn away from the corporate fitness path and opted instead to pursue her doctorate at Virginia Tech so she could teach on the college level.

A lot of those early influences still stay with Wojcik, who joined the Winthrop faculty in 2006 and moved up to the rank of professor in 2020. “I now advocate for increased walkability and bike ability in our community and public amenities to be physically active,” Wojcik said. 

Since arriving at Winthrop, she has taught 12 unique undergraduate courses and three graduate courses. In a typical year, Wojcik teaches seven unique course preparations ranging from Exercise Physiology I to Physical Activity for Special and Aging Populations to internship and portfolio for seniors. She also teaches in multiple modalities, including traditional lecture style courses, hybrid courses and courses that are fully online.

She was chosen as Winthrop’s 2025 Kinard Award recipient for teaching. Read more about her teaching efforts here.

In addition to teaching, mentoring and advising, Wojcik also serves as her department’s exercise science program director and is responsible for assuring that the program meets the accreditation standards set by the Committee on Accreditation for the Exercise Sciences, Commission on Accreditation for Allied Health Education Programs (CoAES/CAAHEP). 

She collaborates with a worksite wellness group and has published some articles on how employers can support physical activity at the workplace. She also leads a senior seminar which leads Winthrop students to take the same ACSM exercise physiologist certification she took at the end of her undergraduate year.

“I advocate for physical activity for all ages, body types, and abilities,” Wojcik said. Once she retires from academia, she likely will resume teaching group fitness and personal training for women and older adults.