ORANGE CITY, Iowa -- Less than five years after Northwestern College began a graduate school, its online Master of Education programs have grown to include seven tracks and more than 400 students.
Now Northwestern is expanding its graduate footprint, with on-site master’s degree programs in athletic training (AT) and physician assistant (PA) studies beginning this May.
The new physician assistant studies program received the green light officials had been waiting for in November: accreditation-provisional, which is the initial accreditation status for new programs.
Program director Dr. Christina Hanson and medical director Dr. Alan Laird had reason to expect accreditation success after a May 2019 site visit with “no observations” — or areas requiring improvement — from the reviewers, which is rare.
Preparations for the PA program have been underway since before the May visit. Physician assistant studies faculty and staff are hired, and construction crews have been remodeling Van Peursem Hall classrooms and labs that were vacated when the biology and chemistry undergraduate programs moved into the new DeWitt Family Science Center. The redesigned spaces will accommodate equipment for teaching physician assistant and athletic training students, including treatment tables, virtual cadaver tables and gross anatomy dissection tables.
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Northwestern’s PA program will enroll up to 32 students each year. All of the slots in the first cohort are filled, and Hanson says she’s excited about the quality of those students.
"Many expressed a specific interest in rural health and were attracted to Northwestern because of our rural setting and the emphasis our program will place on issues surround rural health," she says.
Applications for the 2021 cohort will open April 30.
The physician assistant studies and athletic training master’s degree programs will both benefit from a recent $120,000 grant from the Roy J. Carver Charitable Trust for laboratory equipment. The funds will be used to purchase two virtual cadaver tables, as well as supplies for the human cadaver lab.
"There is growing evidence that using virtual cadavers in addition to traditional human cadavers results in improved student outcomes,” Hanson says.
The six-foot virtual cadaver tables will provide students with a life-sized interactive display that can toggle between detailed anatomical drawings, captioned illustrations, and actual radiologic images (CT and MRI). Students will be able to conduct repeat virtual dissections and simulations before performing traditional dissections in the gross anatomy lab.
"Ultimately, our goal is to create an outstanding learning environment for our PA and AT students so they can provide standout medical care to patients in the communities they serve," Hanson says.
The master’s program in athletic training received official approval from the Commission on Accreditation of Athletic Training Education (CAATE) in November.
Northwestern first began offering a bachelor’s degree in athletic training in 2001. CAATE, however, is transitioning to a requirement that all accredited professional athletic training programs be graduate-level and result in the granting of a master’s degree in athletic training.
"The whole program is being redesigned in response to this requirement," says Dr. Rick Loutsch, director of Northwestern’s athletic training program. "The coursework will be graduate-level, and the clinical experiences are being revamped for students who—because they won’t have undergraduate responsibilities—will be able to give their entire focus to their professional education."
In September, Northwestern hired Doug Maury to serve as the program’s coordinator of clinical education. Maury holds a doctorate in athletic training from A.T. Still University.
Northwestern’s athletic training program will take two years, or six consecutive semesters, to complete.
"The first year is primarily residential," Loutsch says. "During the second year, there’s an option to be placed at clinical sites in different locations and to do some coursework online.”
Any student can apply to Northwestern’s graduate athletic training program as long as he or she meets the prerequisites. Most applicants will likely have undergraduate degrees in exercise science. Acceptance is guaranteed for Northwestern College graduates who meet the program’s admission requirements. Seats are still available; applications are due April 1.
For more information about either program, contact enrollment counselor Danielle Vanderlei at danielle.vanderlei@nwciowa.edu.
Northwestern’s growing graduate school helped the college set an overall record for spring enrollment with 1,406 students in 2020, up from 1,261 last year.
