Program Philosophy
Professional Core Values: The core values of the physical therapy profession and this department are accountability, altruism, collaboration, compassion/caring, duty, excellence, integrity, and social responsibility. A commitment to these values is essential for excellent physical therapist education and practice.
Access and Excellence: Access and excellence underlie our University’s and Department's commitment to ensuring access to a high-quality education to students from diverse backgrounds.
Critical Inquiry: Critical inquiry requires an underlying intellectual curiosity and a commitment to critically evaluating information to make sound judgments. The Department promotes a critical inquiry approach to prepare graduates to improve the health and health care of individuals and communities, and to advance the physical therapy profession.
Community-Centered: Our Department aims to prepare graduates to be willing and able to provide outstanding care to all individuals, including those from underserved and vulnerable populations.
Diversity: We value workforce diversity and take pride in increasing the representation of the 21st century demographic in the physical therapy profession.
Change Agents: We aim to mold our students into change agents for the good of our community and our profession.
Statement of Educational Principles
We believe that a strong and reciprocal student-faculty relationship is the foundation of a successful learning environment. Both students and faculty have the responsibility and power to contribute to teaching and active learning.
We believe that a student-active environment is the most effective learning environment.1 We actively engage students in their learning, with foci on team-based learning and experiential learning.
We believe the most important role of faculty is not to deliver content, but to teach students how to learn.1 Students who practice self-reflection and self-regulation, and who utilize metacognition are more likely to become reflective practitioners and lifelong learners.1
We believe that excellent clinical reasoning skills are essential for optimal patient/client care and the foundation of autonomous practice. Therefore, we guide our students to make explicit connections between the classroom and the clinic.
1.Nilson LB. Teaching at Its Best: A Research-Based Resource for College Instructors. San Francisco, CA:Jossey-Bass, 2010.
Statement of Values
We are committed to the American Physical Therapy Association’s Vision 2030 and its guiding principles (identity, quality, collaboration, value, innovation, consumer-centricity, access/equity, and advocacy) and to our core professional values (accountability, altruism, compassion/caring, excellence, integrity, professional duty, and social responsibility).
We are dedicated to our university’s values of educational access and program excellence. Embracing our mission to serve our under-resourced community, we strive to offer an outstanding doctoral education for the benefit of our region.
We value diversity, and take pride in increasing the representation of the 21st century demographic in the physical therapy profession.