Let’s be honest: the odds are that, unless you live in Delaware, you haven’t given much thought to the University of Delaware. And let’s be honest a second time: Delaware is a bit of a blind spot for us. People live there? What happens in that place? Well, we did a very high-tech Google search and discovered loads of groundbreaking stuff. Like, for example, Delaware has more chickens than people. And it’s known as “The Diamond State” because Thomas Jefferson called it a “jewel” for its advantageous coastal placement.
Which brings us to our point… While we couldn’t care less about strategic seaboard strongholds for waging war against the British, we agree with Ol’ Jefferson that Delaware (or rather, University of Delaware) is a hidden gem. UDel may have a 64% acceptance rate and rank only #86 in colleges nationally according to the U.S. News & World Report, but, believe it or not, it has the #1 physical therapy program in America. If you’re thinking about sports or exercise science, kinesiology, and movement-based healing, you’re going to want to check Delaware out! (No, we didn’t expect that sentence to ever come out of our mouths either, but since we’re bandwagoning you can consider us all-in on “The Small Wonder,” which is, yes, another one of its nicknames, and by the way the state insect is a ladybug if you even care.)
The History of Physical Therapy at University of Delaware
How did the UDel Blue Hens become the best physical therapists in the game? Thank you for asking — we were wondering the exact same thing. University of Delaware’s DPT (Doctor in Physical Therapy) Program has held its accreditation from the Commission on Accreditation of Physical Therapy Education (or CAPTE) since 1976. If you’re a frequent visitor of our “Deep Dive” series, this year might not sound all that impressive on the face of it; after all, many of the schools we’ve covered have long histories in the fields with which they’ve become identified.
UNC-Chapel Hill, which has a reputation for scholastic excellence in public health, became the first state school to establish a school of public health in 1940; Rice had so thoroughly made a name for itself in aeronautics that NASA, shortly after its founding, decided to build the NASA Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston specifically to collaborate with the university, which then implemented the first dedicated space science department in the U.S.A.; and Stanford’s psychology department hails back to 1892, and its first head was a student of the man known as “The Father of Psychology.”
In this company, 1976 might register as more of a shoulder-shrug-tier inception date, but that’s not the case! Yes, the practice of physical therapy in some form dates back centuries, but in terms of professional accreditation University of Delaware got there about as early as you could — CAPTE “has been recognized as an independent agency since 1977 and has been the only recognized agency to accredit physical therapy programs since 1983,” and to this day it “is the only accreditation agency recognized by the United States Department of Education (USDE) and the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) to accredit entry-level physical therapist and physical therapist assistant education programs.”
University of Delaware DPT also runs Delaware Physical Therapy Clinic, “the state’s premier outpatient clinic” that runs out of the STAR Health Sciences Complex right on campus. As DPT has reached new heights, it has continued to invest in the program to improve resources available to therapists, students in training, and patients. In 2014, the clinic upleveled and moved to its current address: “at almost 10,000 square feet, the new clinic is almost twice as large as [its] previous space, and it is equipped with state-of-the-art treatment equipment and technologies.”
The State of Physical Therapy at University of Delaware Today
From our point of view, the measure of DPT’s health as an academic program is not merely its current standing but its intentionality. To that end, the Department of Physical Therapy (housed within the College of Health Sciences) published a 5-year strategic plan set to begin in 2023. They sum up their credentials with this impressive sentence: “Our commitment to excellence has led to numerous achievements, including the top-ranking Doctor of Physical Therapy Program, the training of over 90 PT-PhD clinician-scientists and 25 years of continuous funding for the NIH-T32 Predoctoral Training program, the establishment of post-professional residency and fellowship programs, and over 25 years of running one of the state’s premier physical therapy clinics.”
But DPT didn’t get here by resting on its laurels, and it’s certainly not going to start now; these accomplishments serve as a springboard for an even better realized future iteration of the program, aligned with the school’s mission to “optimize quality of life and human function by transforming physical therapy.” In continual pursuit of this goal, the strategic plan lays out the five “strategic pillars” through which it will advance its mission: “expanding student access and success”; “building a social justice foundation to support a diverse, inclusive, and intercultural campus”; “expanding interdisciplinary and global opportunities”; “redefining creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship”; and “reimagining intellectual and physical capital for a sustainable and boundless campus.”
These aspirations might sound abstract or otherwise vaguely conceived, but it’s important to note that DPT backs up these ideals with actionable tasks and measurable outcomes. For each strategic pillar, you can see the breakdown of “goals,” “actions,” and “key performance indicators.” For example, the first pillar — ”expanding student access and success” — delineates its goal to “attract and engage learners from diverse and non-traditional pathway programs and immerse them in accessible and equitable learning environments that will lead to meaningful and fulfilling careers,” outlines an action plan with steps like “develop a multi-year strategic enrollment plan that addresses critical issues of student recruitment, access, affordability, retention, graduation, and demographic shifts,” and lists as a possible KPI the creation of “1-2 new scholarships to reduce the tuition burden and ensure affordability of our programs.”
If their long-term vision isn’t enough to sway you, their student outcomes just might: on average, 97.2% of alums pass the licensure examination on their first try and 97.5% are employed as physical therapists. We like those odds!
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