Meeting & Agendas

Carolyn Cantu introduced Eileen Klein, Dean Health Sciences. Introduction of faculty members, new adjunct faculty and community representatives: Clinical instructors and Community Advisors were acknowledged.

Carolyn reviewed and highlighted the one WECM change in the OTA Degree Plan 2007-2008. COLLEGE MATH as prerequisite change from Math 2404.

A copy of the OTHA Progress Report 2006-2007 and Program Goals for 2007-08 were distributed. A summary of the highlights of the Progress Report included admissions to the program: *The Class of 2007 graduated 11 students; 8 of those 11 have taken their NBCOT exams and 8 have passed to date; *Class of 2008 had 8 students, 3 of whom have withdrawn from the program; *Class of 2009 admitted 16/ 3 have withdrawn To date� a13 student cohort. *The OTHA faculty has increased by 2 adjunct positions. *The OTHA web page has again been revised and provides greater clarification and organization. *Student recruitment efforts continue with faculty and current students participating in health/education fairs at local high schools and ACC campuses. Posters and flyers highlighting the PTA and OTA programs have been distributed to 6 ACC campuses. *New clinical sites agreements have increased by 3: Scott and White and Darnell Army Hospital (agreement in progress) Metroplex, Killeen was established 2006-07.

Eileen Klein presented a summary of the ON LINE INFORMATION sessions being developed by each health science program. This will allow easy access to a greater number of students thinking about the OT field. The OTA Power Point is in queue for production this semester. Announcement by Carolyn to hold off on pre requisites to include medical terminology until our applicant pool enlarges for 3 consecutive years. Carolyn suggested a change in the admission criteria changing 33% pre requisites, 33%GPA 33% references to 35% Pre requisites, 35% GPA, 15% Mandatory Information Session (either on line or on campus) 15% references. 100% All present in agreement. Mentoring/Tutoring: since the past year has taught us there were not enough students requiring tutoring that would overload those faculty office hours already designated for extra help, a discussion regarding the concept of a student mentor or sponsor ensued. Eileen stated it was important to include in our plans an orientation to sponsors outlining expectations and difficult situations experienced by health science programs who established a mentor/sponsor program in the past. OTA/OTR Collaborative Assignments: Carolyn suggested developing a collaboration with one of the OT Master's Programs on line so that OT/OTA students could select evaluations and develop Tx plans collaboratively. This gives both level student an experience in what to expect from the expertise of the other level of practice. Exploration into this idea will commence during this school year. Challenges: Kim Taylor presented the ever present problem of clinical sites not taking students. We have approximately 47 agreements, yet area clinicians continue to have reasons why their site can not take a student. There are the exceptions of those sites that faithfully agree to student supervision each semester but they are too few in ratio to the long list of clinical educational agreements. Marcia Desy presented the idea to present clinics with an opportunity to sponsor/support their own OT techs to apply to OTA school, return for affiliation and then for their job upon graduation. In this way the ultimate goal of hiring new OTAs will be built into the clinic's support of one of their own attending ACC OTA program, affiliating with them, graduating and returning to work for them. The idea was well received. The OTA faculty will take the first step in implementing this plan by surveying how many and which of the clinical sites already on the list have OTAs working for them. Other ideas expressed were having OT and OTA student paired on affiliation, and having more OTA's as clinical supervisors under the direction of an OT.