Course studies consolidated
Therapy work moved
Photo by Judy Gerling
A group of occupational therapy students work on individual projects while an instructor looks on. The department of occupational therapy is consolidating classroom work on the Lawrence campus next semester. Leland D. Miller, chairman of the department, expressed the hope that new quarters for the department would be larger than present facilities.
All classroom work for the bachelor of science degree in occupational therapy at the University of Kansas will be consolidated on the Lawrence campus next semester, Leland D. Miller, chairman of the department of occupational therapy, has announced.
The semester of coursework that has been given at the Medical Center will be discontinued this spring and the 15-hour block of courses will be offered on the Lawrence campus, said Miller.
Previously the O.T. students did three years or 91 semester hours of course work on the Lawrence campus, a 15-hour block of courses at the Medical Center, plus 10 months (18 semester hours) of clinical affiliations on a field work basis. Now they will do all of the academic work on the Lawrence campus.
Miller said local medical personnel and treatment facilities will be utilized to cover the needed clinical medicine areas in the curriculum which teaches the student to use activity to raise the
functional level of disabled persons.
For the past nine years the occupational therapy department at KU has had its offices in Sudler Hall, a house located behind the old Alpha Omicron Pi sorority house.
Every safety regulation there is has probably been broken, said Miller. Besides the lack of space, plumbing and heating systems are inadequate and the machinery used in the workshop in the basement creates a fire hazard, he said.
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The major problem has been a lack of money. Miller estimated that only $1 out of every $5 that financed the department was provided by the state. The rest is funded through federal grants.
Miller is optimistic, however, since the move from the Medical Center will mean a simultaneous move into larger quarters. The new location is not definite yet, but he said he expected to have more than three times the room the department now occupies in Sudler.
The change should permit better integration of the faculty and curriculum, Miller said. He said that at the Medical Center there was less time for undergraduate
studies and facilities were as critical as on this campus, if not more so.
With the change the occupational therapy curriculum will also be expanded to include more consideration of human function in terms of health and the community beyond the pure medical model.
"We bear the responsibility of being leaders in the profession," said Miller. "In education we have to be at the forefront of what is going on in the field."
In the future there will be a closer liaison with the human development and child research department, said Miller. Through this department occupational therapy majors will be in close contact with people with functional problems.
At KU, occupational therapy is a major leading to a B.S. degree, which in this field is a working degree that constitutes a good and early route into a profession, said Miller.
In the expanded curriculum, clinical affiliation centers will be continued to be used widely, said Miller, since "we are anxious to let the students prove themselves." He said, "We presently have students scheduled and training in such places as New York, Hawaii, Alaska and Texas. If a student wants all his clinical experience in Kansas City, we can arrange that, too."
When KU graduates go out into the profession, Miller said, they find they are in the top 5 per cent of their field.
"Therefore, we know we must be doing something right," he said, "but it will be easier with better facilities."
Across from Lindley Hall
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Competition among these cooks is great as they fight for the right to satisfy your individual tastes. And we all know that through competition better products are made available. Our french toast toaster is continuously trying to make her french toast better than our egg fryer's eggs. Come for breakfast between 7:00 and 10:00 A.M. and help decide the final outcome. Each cook will appreciate your order. Whatever your choice, it has to be good. The captain says so.
Our egg fryer, french toast toaster, hash browns browner, hammy ham cooker, and even our pancakes pancake-maker desire to introduce you to their individual breakfast specialty at the "Captain's Table."
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