Breaking New Grounds in Occupational Therapy Education
The Entry-Level Doctor of Occupational Therapy (OTD) Program was established to support Western New England University’s (WNE) commitment to advancing doctoral education in the health professions. The Center for Graduate and Advanced Studies supported the preliminary development of the academic Division of Occupational Therapy. Dr. Cathy Dow-Royer, Chair/Program Director initiated the application process to begin the OTD program in the Fall 2015 and assumed the full-time leadership of the program in February 2016.
The application process was initiated on October 5, 2015, with a letter of intent to the American Occupational Therapy Association’s (AOTA) Accreditation Council for Occupational Therapy (ACOTE). ACOTE granted candidacy status in December 2016, permitting the program to accept student applications, and to proceed forward with program development as part of the on-going accreditation process. The OTD Program joined the newly restructure College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences (COPHS), and admitted the inaugural class of 29 students in August 2017.
The OTD Program continued the accreditation process and was granted ACOTE Preaccreditation Status on August 12, 2019, and successfully submitted to an ACOTE On-Site Evaluation visit on November 4-6, 2019. Finally, on December 11, 2019, ACOTE granted the “Status of Accreditation for a period of 7 years” to the Doctor of Occupational Therapy Program at Western New England University.
