Departments
- Health and Human Performance
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The Department of Health & Human Performance exists to educate and train students, conduct and translate research, and provide service in the areas of physical activity, preventive and rehabilitative exercise, nutrition, and health promotion. These activities engage the university and the community for the purpose of enhancing health, performance, and quality of life among all people. If these ideals pique your interest, please take a closer look at one of our undergraduate or graduate programs.
- Occupational Therapy
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What is Occupational Therapy? Occupational therapists help people across the lifespan participate in the things they want and need to do through the therapeutic use of everyday activities (occupations). Common occupational therapy interventions include helping children with disabilities to participate fully in school and social situations, helping people recovering from injury to regain skills, and providing supports for older adults experiencing physical and cognitive changes.
Occupational therapy services typically include:
- an individualized evaluation, during which the client/family and occupational therapist determine the person’s goals,
- customized intervention to improve the person’s ability to perform daily activities and reach the goals, and
- an outcomes evaluation to ensure that the goals are being met and/or make changes to the intervention plan.
Occupational therapy services may include comprehensive evaluations of the client’s home and other environments (e.g., workplace, school), recommendations for adaptive equipment and training in its use, and guidance and education for family members and caregivers. Occupational therapy practitioners have a holistic perspective, in which the focus is on adapting the environment to fit the person, and the person is an integral part of the therapy team.
- Physical Therapy
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The Department of Physical Therapy at UTC is fully accredited by the Commission on Accreditation in Physical Therapy Education (CAPTE), since 1992. Physical therapists are health care professionals who evaluate and treat people with health problems resulting from injury or disease. Among other responsibilities, physical therapists assess joint motion, muscle strength and endurance, function of heart and lungs, and performance of activities required in daily living. More than 200,000 physical therapists practice in the United States as of December 2016*, treating nearly one million people every day.
Although many physical therapists practice in acute care or subacute care hospitals, more than 65 percent practice in private physical therapy offices, community health centers, industrial health centers, sports facilities, rehabilitation centers, nursing homes, home health agencies, schools or pediatric centers, work in research institutions or teach in colleges or universities.
After graduation, candidates must pass a state-administered national exam. Other requirements for physical therapy practice vary from state to state according to physical therapy practice acts or state regulations governing physical therapy.
*according to an American Physical Therapy Association (APTA) study
- School of Nursing
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Since 1972, The School of Nursing has prepared highly qualified nursing professionals who are influencing the health care environment and are enhancing the quality of life for individuals, families and society.
We invite you to visit us in the Metropolitan Building on the UTC campus. Our recent expansion has allowed us to focus more on simulation using high fidelity manikins and standardized patients. This new addition allows our Nurse Anesthesia students to have simulated experiences in both the Operating Room and the Post Anesthesia Care Unit. Our other areas of simulation include a “Safe Hospital” with postpartum, pediatric, and adult patients, our main bed lab, and our Family Nurse Practitioner Primary Care lab. Through partnerships with local acute care facilities as well as the UT College of Medicine we are able to offer our students experiences which will prepare them to work in the interprofessional environment, an imperative as we face the new demands in health care.
Our program offers the traditional Bachelor of Science in Nursing, the 100% online RN-BSN Gateway Program, the Masters of Science in Nursing as either Family Nurse Practitioner or Nurse Anesthesia (NA) student and our Doctor Of Nursing Practice (DNP) Concentrations. The NA concentration is offered as a distance learning option while the DNP is offered 100% online.
The School of Nursing received a 10 year re-accreditation from the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education in 2009 for the BSN and MSN programs while the DNP program received an initial 5 year accreditation in 2012. The Nurse Anesthesia program received its 10 re-accreditation from the Counsel on Accreditation in 2011.
- School of Education
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The School of Education is dedicated to the preparation of its graduates to positively impact the lives of all children and families through demonstrating excellence in content, professional practice, leadership and service.
- School of Professional Studies
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The School of Professional Studies consist of the following programs:
The primary purpose of the UTC Counselor Education Program is to train knowledgeable, competent, skillful professional counselors to provide services in both human service agencies and educational settings. This program is based on a developmental process emphasizing skill development at early stages progressing to a strong theoretical base, an ethical and professional orientation, and multicultural sensitivity in order to work with a variety of individuals.
Integrated Studies is a unique program that serves both traditional students and adult students with prior learning. Students design a course plan to fit their educational and career goals. Coursework from disciplines in all colleges on campus can be integrated to form the degree. Prior learning can assessed and applied to the degree. Additionally, students may select coursework that is entirely online.
Our department is committed to meeting the needs of our students and community by providing a useful path to a college degree that exemplifies the high standard of excellence set forth by the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.
Integrated Studies is a unique program that serves both traditional students and adult students with prior learning. Students design a course plan to fit their educational and career goals. Coursework from disciplines in all colleges on campus can be integrated to form the degree. Prior learning can assessed and applied to the degree. Additionally, students may select coursework that is entirely online.
Our department is committed to meeting the needs of our students and community by providing a useful path to a college degree that exemplifies the high standard of excellence set forth by the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.
Learning & Leadership Doctoral Program (LEAD)
The multidisciplinary Learning and Leadership Doctoral Program (Ed.D.) equips participants with an understanding of the relationship that learning plays in the leadership process. The program philosophy supports the development of reflective practitioners in a variety of organizations and focuses on the interwoven nature of learning and leadership. The curriculum emphasizes the proficiency that individuals will need as they pursue the challenges of organizational change. Major themes include, "How do we measure performance?", "How do people adapt to change?", and "What role does learning play in organizational improvement?"
The Learning and Leadership Program begins with a cohort of participants and a faculty team engaging in an induction learning experience followed by a five semester sequence of required core courses (27 credits) offered via hybrid delivery (face to face and Virtual Classroom). Upon completion of the core, individuals have the opportunity to focus their studies in a particular subject matter area through elective course work (24 credits). Other major elements of the program include the development of the Comprehensive Assessment and the final core course, LEAD 7700 Pre-Dissertation Seminar. The Comprehensive Assessment is the culminating assessment event that must be successfully completed prior to advancement to candidacy and to beginning work on the Dissertation. Participants will demonstrate competency in the program domains through written and oral presentation. The competency domains are Learning, Leadership, Research, Measurement, Organizational Effectiveness, Technology and Innovation, and Communication.
The Program For The School Psychology Specialty is designed to produce graduates who meet requirements for licensure in school psychology from the Tennessee Department of Education. We are prepared to utilize commonly accepted "best practices" in our work as school psychologists, and are prepared to provide leadership in our field to schools and other organizations serving children and adolescents. Within the southeast Tennessee and northwest Georgia area, 75%-80% of the currently practicing school psychologists are UTC graduates.
Social Work is the profession of caring and intervening in the interactions between individuals, groups, and communities to enhance or restore well-being, and create societal conditions that help individuals, groups, and communities enhance their own well-being. Social workers select, use, and develop interventions based on the best available evidence.