Iona College Announces Innovative and Collaborative Occupational Therapy Program
Under the direction of Laurette Olson, Ph.D., OTR/L, FAOTA, Iona's program has been granted candidacy status by the ACOTE and will commence in the Fall 2019 semester.
NEW ROCHELLE, N.Y.— In keeping with its strategic goals of strengthening academic excellence and distinctiveness, creating more opportunities for student success, and acquiring the best and brightest faculty, Iona College has developed a new MS in Occupational Therapy. Under the direction of Laurette Olson, Ph.D., OTR/L, FAOTA, who has over 30 years-experience as a practicing occupational therapist and has written and presented extensively on the subject, Iona's program has been granted Candidacy Status by the Accreditation Council for Occupational Therapy Education (ACOTE) of the American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA). This is a critical step in the path toward achieving full accreditation status from ACOTE.
Throughout the next few months, OT program faculty will be interviewing and admitting students for the Fall 2019 semester. Over the next two years, the program faculty and college administration will engage in a self-study process of the developing program, the next step toward accreditation. In December, Iona College also received notification that after a careful review of the program and its curriculum, the NYS Department of Education has registered this program to award an MS in Occupational Therapy.
According to AOTA, occupational therapy "helps people across the lifespan to do the thing they want and need to do through therapeutic use of daily activities. Occupational therapy practitioners enable people of all ages to live life to its fullest by helping them promote health, and prevent –or live better with—injury, illness or disability."
Occupational Therapy faculty are building the program around the strengths of the College including the Hynes Institute for Entrepreneurship & Innovation and Iona's focus on community engagement and service-learning. OT students will be active members of the community and will be engaged in learning and service in health care, education and community organizations in Westchester County and New York City. Throughout the graduate OT curriculum, students will also be involved in lectures, activities, and events at the Hynes Institute in order to grow their entrepreneurial mindset and skills for design thinking and innovation in the interest of persons with disabilities.
"With the speed of change in the world today, every field has to think about innovation, and having the Hynes Institute for Entrepreneurship & Innovation on campus to help us think about and develop innovations in OT is very exciting," Olson said.
"We will also be collaborating with different departments that are also educating helping professionals across campus including the Communication Sciences and Disorders graduate program,” Olson added. The OT and CSD faculty are working to develop authentic interprofessional learning opportunities where students will collaborate around clinical activities and service. In addition, the occupational therapy program is proud to join with other Iona College allied health programs in launching a student allied health interdisciplinary scholarly journal.
In 2017, CNNMoney listed Occupational Therapist as #5 on their list of fastest-growing Jobs. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects a 24 percent growth in the field over the next 10 years, which is much faster than average growth for other occupations.
Joseph E. Nyre, Ph.D., president of Iona College said, "Iona prepares its students for both service and success in the classroom and in life. Our OT program opens up new opportunities for our students to shine in their lives and in the lives of others."
Iona offers various programs in the health professions including pre-medical, pre-dental, pre-podiatry, pre-physician's assistant and pre-physical therapy, pre-veterinary, pre-pharmacy and pre-optometry. The College also has early acceptance programs with Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine, New York College of Podiatric Medicine and New York Chiropractic College.
An open house will be held for Iona's Occupational Therapy Program on Thursday, January 10, 2019, at 5:30 p.m., at the Admissions Welcome Center in McSpedon Hall. Faculty will share more details about the new program, as well as answer questions. GaelGuides will be offering tours of Iona College throughout the afternoon.
ABOUT IONA
Founded in 1940, Iona University is a master's-granting private, Catholic, coeducational institution of learning in the tradition of the Edmund Rice Christian Brothers. Iona's 45-acre New Rochelle campus and 28-acre Bronxville campus are just 20 miles north of Midtown Manhattan. With a total enrollment of nearly 4,000 students and an alumni base of more than 50,000 around the world, Iona is a diverse community of learners and scholars dedicated to academic excellence and the values of justice, peace and service. Iona is highly accredited, offering undergraduate degrees in liberal arts, science and business administration, as well as Master of Arts, Master of Science and Master of Business Administration degrees and numerous advanced certificate programs. Iona students enjoy small class sizes, engaged professors and a wide array of academic programs across the School of Arts & Science; LaPenta School of Business; NewYork-Presbyterian Iona School of Health Sciences; and Hynes Institute for Entrepreneurship & Innovation. Iona is widely recognized in prestigious rankings, including The Princeton Review’s 2025 national list of “The Best 390 Colleges” and The Wall Street Journal/College Pulse’s “2024 Best Colleges in America,” which ranked Iona at #66 in the nation overall and #8 in the nation among Catholic schools. Iona’s LaPenta School of Business is also accredited by AACSB International, a recognition awarded to just six percent of business schools worldwide. In addition, The Princeton Review recognized Iona’s on-campus MBA program as a “Best Business School for 2023.” Iona also offers a fully online MBA program for even greater flexibility. In July 2021, Iona announced the establishment of the NewYork-Presbyterian Iona School of Health Sciences, which is now principally located on Iona’s Bronxville campus in collaboration with NewYork-Presbyterian. Connecting to its Irish heritage, the University also recently announced it is expanding abroad with a new campus in County Mayo, Ireland. A school on the rise, Iona officially changed its status from College to University on July 1, 2022, reflecting the growth of its academic programs and the prestige of an Iona education.