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Kenneth E. Baldwin

Associate Professor
Program Coordinator, 100% Online Master’s in Fitness & Wellness Leadership

Ken Baldwin is a full-time associate professor and program coordinator that created and developed the 100% online master’s in fitness and wellness leadership and the undergraduate degree in fitness and wellness leadership at the State University of New York (SUNY). Ken is one of the few, full-time tenured professors in the United States that started and managed his own successful personal training and fitness consulting business prior to working in academia. His company incorporated a medically-based fitness model that was the first personal training-only fitness business that was affiliated with Harvard Pilgrim HMO’s professional network. Ken’s company hired and developed a diverse and inclusive staff of caring fitness, health, and medical professionals that included clinical exercise physiologists, personal fitness trainers, group exercise instructors, physical therapists, U.S. Olympic athletes, and registered dietitians. Ken’s company provided personal training and fitness consulting services with companies in the Cambridge and Boston area that includes the Cambridge YMCA, the Esplanade Condominiums, and the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in downtown Boston. Some of Ken’s personal training clients include Dr. John E. Mack, a Pulitzer Prize winner and Harvard University psychiatrist/professor, Lorna Cooke deVaron, renowned choral conductor who served as director and chair of the New England Conservatory Choral Department, Dr. Gerald Sacks, Professor of Mathematical Logic at MIT and Harvard, and Alan Dershowitz, noted Harvard Law School professor and legal expert and scholar on United States constitutional and criminal law.

Ken has been working in an academic setting since 2000, and his first opportunity to teach, develop, and coordinate an academic program was at San Diego State University (SDSU). He created SDSU’s Personal Trainer Certificate Program, a 6-month program that prepared individuals to become successful personal trainers. Professor Baldwin is best known for developing and implementing Purdue University’s undergraduate degree in personal fitness training, the nation’s first four-year degree program for students planning to pursue a career in personal training in 2004. It’s not only that this was the first four-year degree, but he is known for creating the current modern day academic model for undergraduate fitness/exercise science degree structure that incorporates clinical rotations, practical course work, science coursework, and fitness business classes into degrees focusing on fitness, personal training, kinesiology, sports performance, fitness management, allied health/fitness and exercise science.

Ken has received national recognition from numerous media outlets for his achievements in creating this academic degree model, including Newsweek, L. A. Times, Chicago Tribune, Indianapolis Star, Athletic Business, WRTV-TV 6, MSNBC.COM, Fitness Business News, Associated Press, IDEA Fitness Journal, Fitness Professional Online, New York Newsday, Club Industry, IHRSA, and Personal Fitness Professional for establishing both Purdue’s personal training and SUNY’s fitness degree.

He has served in state and national leadership roles, and is the former chair of IDEA’s National Personal Trainer Committee and chair of the Senior Fitness Subcommittee for the Massachusetts’s Governor’s Committee on Physical Fitness and Sports. He’s served or is serving on national committees for American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) Personal Trainer and Certification Development Committee, AAHPERD, and the Medical Fitness Association (MFA). He’s been awarded Boston’s Best Personal Trainer three times and is the recipient of the IDEA’s Personal Trainer of the Year Award. Ken is the senior editor, content expert, and lead author for ACSM’s Resources for the Personal Trainer Textbook (2nd Edition).

Ken also serves as the executive director for The National Posture Institute (NPI), an educational and professional organization that provides certificate programs for personal trainers/group instructors and allied health/medical/fitness professionals to receive the National Posture Institute-Certified Posture Specialist and NPI’s Certified Resistance Training Professional designation.

Ken has been involved in the fitness, wellness, and education profession for over 20 years. With an extensive background in the fitness industry which includes operating and managing a personal training company, to training many types of populations from children to seniors and beginning exercisers to athletes, to lecturing and consulting at college/university departments, corporations, public events, national conventions (ACSM Health and Fitness Summit, Club Industry, IDEA World Conference, AAHPERD, International Council of Active Aging, Canadian Fitness Professional Conference, NCOA, World Class Conference in Moscow, Russia, International Federation on Aging, and the Medical Fitness Association, to name a few) and international conferences. In addition to his industry experience, he is actively involved in working with national organizations and colleges/universities in developing educational standards for those wishing to enter the personal fitness training and health/fitness profession.

  • Education
    • M.A., Lesley University
    • B.S., Bentley College
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