Just a fortnight after graduating its inaugural class of newly minted doctors earlier this month, Brenau University received notice that its Physical Therapy Department has been fully accredited by the Commission on Accreditation in Physical Therapy Education.
The commencement exercise for the 37 men and women who received Doctor of Physical Therapy degrees had been deemed by Brenau officials as the last major milestone in their seven-year quest to establish a high-quality program on the Gainesville campus.
“Brenau celebrates our premier physical therapy program,” said Brenau Provost Dr. Jim Eck. “Its accreditation culminates years of hard work by our physical therapy faculty who are national leaders within their discipline. This innovative program of distinction will significantly extend the strong academic reputation of the university and the Ivester College of Health Sciences.”
Dr. Kathye Light, chair of the Brenau physical therapy department, called the accomplishment “nothing short of fabulous.”
“It’s monumental,” she said. “It was a very hard thing to do. We had obstacles and challenges and all sorts of things to do in order to keep moving it forward. So this feels huge.”
The idea for the physical therapy doctorate officially hatched in late 2012 when Brenau President Ed Schrader signed a long-term lease with the city of Gainesville for the Georgia Mountains Center, a convention/conference and entertainment venue, which the school would renovate into the home for the physical therapy department and other health care programs. Building remodeling and construction of PT-specific facilities began shortly after.
“It is one of the best decisions we’ve ever made,” said Schrader. “We predicted that we would develop one of the finest physical therapy doctoral programs in the country and I believe we have done that. We already were receiving hundreds of applications each year from all over the United States for the new slots that opened up with the conditional accreditation that has been in place these past three years, and those numbers will only increase as we move forward with full accreditation.”
Now, Schrader added, the university will move forward on developing facilities for a physician assistant degree program at the same location as the PT school – what is now called Brenau Downtown Center.
CAPTE approved candidacy for accreditation status before that first class could be admitted to the program three years ago. That followed two years of planning and another two-year process of establishing the program, building adequate facilities and hiring well-qualified professors and other staff members. The department received temporary accreditation following the 2018 spring commencement and full accreditation was dependent upon the results of the students’ board exams.
