[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="772.0"] Shannon Nicole Clifford, Ph.D., executive director of Kean’s new School of Physical Therapy[/caption]

PT Program Scheduled for June 2016 Start

Union, N.J. (Nov. 2, 2015) – Kean University will begin accepting applications immediately for its new Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT) program, which will launch in June 2016 at the Nathan Weiss Graduate College.

The New Jersey Secretary of Higher Education, Rochelle Hendricks, gave final approval to the program today.  Kean will now submit an Application for Candidacy to the Commission on Accreditation in Physical Therapist Education and continue developing plans to enroll its first DPT students for the Summer Session I in 2016. 

“In New Jersey, too many students interested in careers in physical therapy are traveling out of state for their education,” said Dawood Farahi, Ph.D., president of Kean University.  “These students can now remain in state and receive a world-class education at Kean University.”

Open to qualified candidates with a bachelor’s degree, the program is designed to meet new academic requirements in the field of physical therapy, according to Shannon Nicole Clifford, Ph.D., executive director of Kean’s new School of Physical Therapy. 

“New industry standards require physical therapists to have a clinical doctorate degree,” she said.  “We’ve developed a curriculum from the ground up that meets both the current standards and the demands of the modern clinician.”

The Kean DPT program’s unique curriculum will give students both classroom and clinical experience in several tracks.  After each new area of study is completed, students will have part-time and full-time clinical rotations that directly reinforce, in real-life clinical settings, what was learned in class. 

The program will draw on the talent of physical therapy experts from throughout New Jersey and will help fill a growing need for physical therapists in the state.

“New practitioners are needed to care for aging baby boomers as well as in the growing field of pediatric physical therapy,” said Clifford.  “We have designed a program that will develop physical therapy professionals who graduate ready to impact leadership in the industry.”

The Doctor of Physical Therapy program is Kean University’s fourth doctoral program and its first entry-level doctoral program.  It will be housed in Kean’s new state-of-the-art academic and research building on North Avenue, which is scheduled to open in January 2016.  The new building will also be the home for the School of Physical Therapy, the Master of Science in Physician Assistant Studies program (in development) and the School of Computer Science and Information Technology. 

Learn more about the Kean Doctor of Physical Therapy program at http://grad.kean.edu/doctoral-programs/dpt.