Director's Message
Dr. Cheryl Kozey providing an update and tour of the research labs to the PT Class of 1984.
By: Dr. Anne Fenety, Director of the School of Physiotherapy
Fall is a time for renewal in the School of Physiotherapy. Welcoming new students is one obvious form of renewal. Welcoming new alumni is a less obvious but equally important form of renewal because our alumni play essential roles in the School’s success. At a public level, alumni contribute to the School’s academic operations (e.g. Clinical Instructors, teachers, etc.). At a private level, alumni are generous financial donors. As a steward of these funds, I will fulfill my duty to alumni and highlight how these alumni funds have been used for student scholarships, student travel awards, and renovations. With a view to the future, I will introduce our newly created 2015 Physiotherapy Scholarship Fund. With a nod to our physiotherapy alumni, the final word will be ‘thanks’.
Student Scholarships
To offset tuition costs, we use every avenue possible to fund our graduate students in both the clinical (Entry Level Master’s – ELM) and research (Rehabilitation Research – RR) programs. Current funding distribution is found in the pie chart seen below. Graduate students in the School of Physiotherapy achieved considerable success (i.e. $163,920) in the 2014/15 academic year from a variety of sources.
The alumni portion of this figure ($14,674) was raised via alumni donations. While this represents just 9% of total scholarships, the value of these funds is twofold: First, alumni funds allow us to fund select students with extreme financial or health-related difficulties. We do so because both issues can lead to academic difficulty. Second, alumni funds give us the freedom to augment (i.e. ‘top up’) other awards. These top ups improve our chances of keeping academically strong applicants who apply to our ELM and RR graduate programs. For example, the Faculty of Graduate Studies awards $5,000 to the incoming ELM physiotherapy student with the highest average. With alumni funds, we can increase this award to make it competitive with Queen’s University or Western Ontario University, our main competitors for attracting academically strong students.
Student Travel
The CPA’s National Student Assembly meets annually at the CPA Congress. Our Dalhousie physiotherapy students have made considerable contributions to the NSA in executive roles, as CPA Award winners, and as national leaders in the drive to achieve CPA student membership for every Dalhousie physiotherapy student. This year, using alumni funds, we assisted four ELM students to attend the NSA at the Edmonton CPA Congress, including Jesse Robson, the 2014 winner of the Helen Saarinen Rahikka Student Leadership Award.
Renovations
In the past 15 years, the School of Physiotherapy has achieved considerable funding and research success in musculoskeletal research in motion analysis (e.g. gait, balance) studying subjects with osteoarthritis, low back pain, and balance disturbances. Success has meant that space for research and space for graduate students became tight in rooms 315/316. In 2013, our newest faculty member, Dr. Derek Rutherford received a $312K Canada Foundation for Innovation Award to purchase equipment for a state-of-the-art motion capture and gait analysis suite in the School of Physiotherapy with the capacity to study gait in several patient populations and under any test condition--notably with perturbations. To install this equipment and update the musculoskeletal research space required a major renovation.
Plans called for all offices to be co-located in room 316 (‘thinking’ area), walls to be removed in 315 to install research and teaching equipment (‘doing’ area), and new graduate student carrels to be created in between the two areas. This major renovation would require funding from inside and outside the School. To achieve this was an exercise in leveraging funds by finding university services / units which were willing to match funds. The matching started at the School level where we agreed to use $15K in alumni funds that we matched at a ratio of 5:1 (i.e. $75K). We eventually found our major ‘matching’ partners and on September 15th, renovations began on the musculoskeletal research laboratory in rooms 315/316. Plans call for completion in mid-December, 2015. Keep your ears tuned for interesting, applied results coming out of this lab.
Where to From Here?
We take our stewardship role seriously in the School, but we recognize that many potential donors may wish to focus their donations on specific projects, like student scholarships. To that end, in November, 2013, the School set up the 2015 Physiotherapy Scholarship Fund in conjunction with the 50th anniversary celebrations which begin this coming January. The purposes of this fund are to (i) offer entrance scholarships to students from economically disadvantaged groups and students who demonstrate academic excellence, (ii) provide emergency / bridge funds for students in severe financial or health-related difficulties, and (iii) to assist ELM students with extreme travel or accommodation challenges during clinical placements. In 1990, as part of the School’s 25th Anniversary celebrations, alumni donations were set aside to fund, among other things, graduate scholarships for the future MSc(RR)PT program. Those funds have since grown to $41,486.00. I trust you will be pleased to learn that School Faculty voted unanimously to transfer those funds to the 2015 Physiotherapy Scholarship Fund. Congratulations, School of Physiotherapy alumni on being the first major donor to this fund!
And the last word ….
Thank you!! You have made the lives of our ELM and RR graduate students better. You have enabled us to recruit students who would have otherwise gone ‘down the road’. You have funded students to attend Congress and begin the socialization process of becoming a physiotherapist. And, you have made an exciting renovation happen that has been just a dream for several years. On behalf of students, Faculty and Staff, I offer cheers and applause.
- Anne