Skip to main content

2025-university-profile-11.png

What is Occupational Therapy?

Occupational Therapy is a health care profession that focuses on helping people regain, develop or master everyday skills in order to live independent, productive and satisfying lives (Source: AOTA Website).

The profession promotes and maintains health, maximizes independent functioning, and enhances development through the therapeutic use of meaningful everyday activities.

Colorado Mesa University's Master of Science in Occupational Therapy (MSOT) program matriculated the first class of future Occupational Therapists in Spring 2022. 

 

 

cream-and-brown-photographic-beauty-site-launch-website-2.png

ZOOM LINK HERE

The program will consist of didactic and clinical academic work over the course of 24 months.

Academic Requirements for Master of Science in Occupational Therapy
Occupational therapy practitioners work in a wide range of settings including schools, hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, home health, outpatient rehabilitation clinics, psychiatric facilities, and community health programs. School systems, hospitals and long-term-care facilities are the primary work settings for occupational therapists and occupational therapy assistants.
cohot-23.png
 
Mission

The Occupational Therapy Program at Colorado Mesa University strives to prepare practitioners-scholars to meet the diverse occupational needs of individuals, groups, and populations (i.e., the client) across contexts and throughout the lifespan. Consistent with the university's mission to become a Human Scale University, the program is committed to: 

  • Providing an affordable and accessible education
  • Forming meaningful and mutually enriching community partnerships
  • Producing excellence in critical thinking and ethical decision making
  • Building competence in leadership, advocacy, and research
Vision

We envision a campus community that is a model of the world we want to create. CMU aspires to be a Human Scale Univsersity that serves as a model of the world we want to live in; a world where people aspire to love, extend dignity, choose courage, demonstrate humility, develop resiliency, celebrate curiosity, and use power for good.

Belonging

CMU is a Human Scale University where we are a model of the world we want to create. This model is based on our values where love, dignity, courage, resiliency, curiosity, humility and power are a part of everything we do. Our commitment to these principles allows us to offer you the opportunity for a better life through education as we teach you how to think, not what to believe. 

Colorado Mesa University is committed to a safe and healthy campus environment dedicated to fostering a sense of belonging irrespective of factors including, but not limited to, age, race/ethnicity, language, national origin, religion/faith, gender, ability status, veteran status, immigration status, political ideology, socioeconomic background, or sexual orientation. We believe in the power of a Human Scale University to sustain a community where everyone can thrive and feel a true sense of belonging. 

Philosophy 
In alignment with the American Occupational Therapy Association’s (AOTA) Philosophical Base of Occupational Therapy (2017), Colorado Mesa University’s Occupational Therapy Program believes engagement in occupations is fundamental to health. All persons, groups, and populations (i.e., clients) have an innate need to engage in meaningful occupations across the lifespan (AOTA, 2020). A core philosophical assumption of the profession is that people of all ages and abilities require occupation to grow and thrive; in pursuing occupation, humans express a mind–body–spirit union (Hooper & Wood, 2019). Occupational therapy practitioners view this transactional relationship as the foundation for using occupation as therapy. This knowledge sets occupational therapy apart as a distinct and valuable service for which a focus on the whole is considered stronger than isolated aspects of human functioning (Hildenbrand & Lamb, 2013).
Occupational therapy educational programs prepare future practitioners (i.e., occupational therapists and occupational therapy assistants) to address the occupational needs of all clients. In agreement with the AOTA’s Philosophy on Occupational Therapy Education (AOTA, 2018), Colorado Mesa University’s Occupational Therapy Program views humans as occupational beings, occupation as a health determinant, and participation in occupations as a fundamental human right. Educators facilitate professional reasoning that is client-centered, evidence-based, and theory driven (AOTA, 2018). Students develop skills in clinical reasoning, critical thinking, and cultural understanding. Through this process, students build the foundation of their professional identity.
 
American Occupational Therapy Association. (2020). Occupational therapy practice framework: Domain and process (4 ed.). The American Journal of Occupational Therapy, 74(Supplement_2). 1-87. http://doi.org/10.5014/ajot.2020.74S2001
American Occupational Therapy Association. (2017). Philosophical Base of Occupational Therapy. The American Journal of Occupational Therapy, 71(Supplement_2), http://doi.org/10.5014/ajot.2017.716S06
American Occupational Therapy Association. (2018). Philosophy of occupational therapy education. The American Journal of Occupational Therapy, 72(Supplement_2), 1-2. http://doi.org/10.5014/ajot.2018.72S201
Hildenbrand, W. C., & Lamb, A. J. (2013). Occupational therapy in prevention and
wellness: Retaining relevance in a new health care world. The American Journal of
Occupational Therapy, 67(3), 266–271. http://doi.org/10.5014/ajot.2013.673001
Hooper, B., & Wood, W. (2019). The philosophy of occupational therapy: A framework for practice. In B. A. B. Schell & G. Gillen (Eds.), Willard and Spackman’s occupational therapy (13th ed., pp. 43–55). Philadelphia: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.