The Department of Physical Education is CUGB’s physical education and scientific research department. The department has a national first-level discipline master’s station in Physical Education. It is the Chairman unit of three major athletic associations: the Orienteering Association of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the Outdoor Association of the Beijing Collegiate Athletic Association, and the Fitness and Bodybuilding Association of the Beijing Collegiate Athletic Association. The department is responsible for the physical education of all students, the everyday training of the university’s sports teams, the development of general sports body-building activities, and the training of postgraduate students in Science of Physical Culture and Sports. The department has twenty-seven teachers, including one professor, eleven associate professors, and fourteen lecturers. Four members of staff hold doctorates and seventeen hold master’s degrees. There are one hundred and fifteen postgraduate students studying Science of Physical Culture and Sports. During evaluation of undergraduate teaching quality by the Ministry of Education, the "physical education curriculum" was evaluated and highly praised as a distinctive teaching feature of CUGB. In 2017, the Department of Physical Education successfully hosted the China University Football Association (Campus Division) Northeast Finals, which were won by CUGB Men’s Football Team. The department also hosted the 57th Capital University Track and Field Sports Meet in 2019, for which it won the "Best Host Award".

The Department of Physical Education has always adhered to the development of "sports with geological characteristics", vigorously engaged in rock climbing, orienteering, field survival, outdoor training, and other outdoor sports. It has built four high-level sports teams—in rock climbing, orienteering, track and field, and taekwondo—which have participated many times in world series representing CUGB and China.

The Department of Physical Education focuses on integration of the development of students and mass sports, with a focus on both physical and mental health. Full play is given to basic teaching and public services functions, and emphasis is placed on developing discipline construction by focusing on providing support for the basic teaching of public sports as well as the specialized development of specific sports.

The Department of Physical Education will inherit and carry forward its fine traditions in a truth-seeking and pragmatic spirit, emancipating minds, being competitive, and promoting the integrated development of CUGB's sporting ideals, so that physical education will not only become an important part of school education, but will also enhance national fitness and cultivate outstanding talents for China and the society.