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This interview is being conducted in the Hearing and Balance Centers Conference Room in the Administration Building on the Towson University campus. It is part of a series of interviews comprising the TURFA

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Oral History Project, conceived and supported by the Towson University Retired Faculty Association with a generous support from the Dean of the College of Health Professions. This interview, as well as others in this series, is

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available in the Towson University Archives. Our guest interviewees today are Charlotte Exner and Marcie Weinstein. Both of these retired faculty members are Professors Emerita

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from the Department of Occupational Therapy and Occupational Science. Welcome, Charlotte, and welcome Marcie. Thank you.

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First, I'm going to ask some introductory questions to both of you, first to Charlotte and then to Marcie, and then I'll just open it up with other questions I'll ask later on. So, Charlotte, where were you born?

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I was born in Ohio near Wheeling, West Virginia. I was actually born in Wheeling, West Virginia. And what colleges and universities did you attend? Oh, the colleges that I attended were, let's see, Ohio State

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University. That's where I did my undergrad work because I was wanting to study for occupational therapy. OK.

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And you decided on a whole career in higher education. Yes. Why did you decide to go into higher education? Oh my gosh, it worked out so incredibly well

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for me. I was working at Kennedy Krieger Institute with kids with disabilities. And while I was there, I was interested in how people were

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starting to do more research and I was, like, a really young novice person. I had a, there was a colleague there who said, well, you know, maybe you should look at Towson University and see about

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that. So I ended up contacting other people who were doing research and they were so helpful and they were so encouraging and they had me teaching the undergrad course

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in, I guess reading, related topics there to help the students get started. So that's how I ended up getting connected into Towson University.

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And I found that the faculty there were so incredibly helpful and nurturing, you know, kind of thing, Oh, here's how you do this. Here's what you do this with a student situation, but also one

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of the colleagues there was doing research, and I thought that was fascinating because I knew that all these little kids that I saw at Kennedy Krieger really needed accommodation, you know, to help them be more productive, you

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know, be happy, be able to do things that other kids were able to do. So it was that kind of try picture of things that made a lot of things influence me and get me into the academic world.

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Very good. And Marcie, let me turn to you. Where were you born? I was born in Kansas City, Missouri. Kansas City. And colleges and

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universities? Where did you go to school? I'm a Jayhawk, I went to the University of Kansas for my bachelor's degree.

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I did my MBA at the University of Baltimore here once I moved here and my doctoral work at UMBC, University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Rock Chalk, Jayhawk. And and why did you decide to have a career in higher education?

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You know, I was listening to Charlotte's wonderful description and I think I don't have nearly as lofty a story to tell. I'll tell you what it is.

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There are probably a couple of reasons. One is that in health professions education, it's largely an apprenticeship model for most health professions that students do a fair amount of field work, practicum, internship, whatever

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it is that's called. And in occupational therapy, we did nine months, three months in three different locations and different practice areas. And one of mine was in Baltimore.

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I'd never been east of the Mississippi, and when I got done, they offered me a job. So I came back here and have been here ever since and gravitated fairly early on to teaching students.

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I liked explaining things. I thought I was pretty good at it and could break things down and, you know, because there were students all the time doing field work at the hospital I was in when it was Sinai

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Hospital. So that was one of the interests in developing a focus in teaching. But from a practical standpoint, I had a daughter with a fairly,

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emergency illness that turned into a chronic illness and I needed to have a more flexible schedule. And as a, you know, hospitals, I worked 8:00 to 5:00. But in a university setting, I'd worked full time plus, but

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there was some latitude towards when your courses were taught. I could respond more quickly to her if I needed to. So and Towson University, which for many, many, many years

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had the only occupational therapy program in the state of Maryland was right here in our backyard. So I applied and here I am. And when did you come to Towson?

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You know, I started teaching in a part time capacity in 1985. Two weeks after my daughter was born, my second daughter was born, and I've joined the faculty full time in 1989 and stayed until 2020.

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What was the institution called when you came? It wasn't Towson University. It was Towson State College. College. I think it was Towson State University, but I'm not sure when you arrived.

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It was Towson State College, I think when I came. I have a lot of old TSU gear. And when you first got here, what was your impression of Towson?

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Oh, I just thought it was great. I guess I was young. I just really enjoyed being there with the students and talking with them and I was young.

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So being young and they're young I thought was an asset at that particular time. You know, it wasn't like I was somebody totally out of their world or whatever that was then.

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But yeah, that that was really very rewarding. And I really loved the idea of helping them learn to write and how to write something for professional use. And so, in the meantime, I got connected in

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with people who were interested in research and I was like, Oh my gosh, this is great. I mean, this is great. I want to do this.

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Like, how do I do this? So anyway, then I had someone who was a much more experienced OT that I knew and she was doing a study and helped me get started.

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Marcie, what was your first impression when you got here into on campus? Well, physically it was a much, much smaller campus and not nearly as pretty and none of that beautiful hardscaping was

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done. I remember the Hoke years, and I forgot the name of the woman who worked with him, anyway, who made this campus very beautiful.

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And it was much more of a commuter school. It was much smaller, of course, and therefore more accessible in that way, although ironically, my impression was that in some ways we were still fairly siloed.

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We were in Lida Lee Tall at the time. I spent many years in Lida Lee Tall, but within the College of Health professions, we tended to, I want to say, keep to ourselves, but not in any kind of, you know, dismissive sort of

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way. But in in occupational therapy, we were always a screened program. So it was a competitive entry program.

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And so those kinds of students you're describing were students who really worked hard to be there. So we were really, our lens was fairly small because we had this... We were a cohorted program who, they all marched lockstep

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together and we did with them. So it was insular in that kind of way. But the campus itself had much more of an accessible sort of feel in terms of being able to access people because we were

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not the size that we are now. Marcie, you said you came in the middle 80s. How many years were you on the faculty? Well, I joined full time in 1989 and I left in 2020.

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Now, I was probably only in a full time faculty role, I want to say maybe in 2001 I moved into the Dean's office. So... But I still taught periodically.

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And about how many years were were you at Towson, Charlotte? About the same. About the same number? You came a couple of years before me, 87, I think, 85.

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I don't know. And then I left sooner, right? Yeah, so, I'm sorry. Say that again?

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Well, I'm just wondering how long you were here. But it sounds like you were here about the same amount of time. About the same amount of time. And you said you taught a writing course, which I think is

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interesting because you were hired to teach in occupational therapy, but you did teach... What other courses did you teach besides writing? Well, I was hired to teach that particular course,

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that one, early on. And, I'm sorry, say it again. What other courses, what courses in occupational therapy did you teach?

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Oh, I predominantly taught research courses with the students as occupational therapy was growing and having much more focus on research and Towson University I think was also, you know, having more focus on research studies.

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And so I had done my graduate studies at University of Maryland College Park and with a big focus on research things. And so that gave me some confidence in being able to start doing that.

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And so a lot of what I did was oriented around research studies. And what did you teach when you were here? So what Charlotte was describing a little bit was the second

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writing course. And remember that the second writing course was pretty much always in a student's discipline. So I taught the same course as well.

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Our second writing course, which was the required Gen Ed, was the research course in the OT program, in the occupational therapy program. And I followed Charlotte, she taught me that course.

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I, we're both night owls, so we'd sometimes be on the phone or on a computer one or two in the morning about, what do you do with this? So I absolutely learned that course from her.

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We did those side by side, that research and writing course. I had moved into administration pretty early on in a clinical role.

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So I taught many of the admin related courses and policy courses and... From a clinical perspective, my background had been in adult physical disabilities, so I taught a little bit of that as well.

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And then you became an administrator in the College of Health Professions. In what role? I became the Associate Dean to Charlotte's Dean position.

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And you were Dean? Yeah. For a good number of years, it seemed like. Sixteen or more, I think. Yeah.

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And Marcie was, like, the most important person in my life at that time, you know. And so anyway, we spent so much time together and working on things and commiserating.

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And Charlotte did something fairly innovative. She created an Assistant Dean role. When she was Dean, she converted a faculty line, and this was before any of the colleges had an Assistant Dean.

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And she asked me to take on that role. We were doing a lot of collaborative programs, particularly with CCBC. And Ray Steiner was your Associate Dean.

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And after Ray moved on, then I moved into that role. Yes, we developed in occupational therapy a remote program with Western Maryland. We were in Frostburg because, again,

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we were the only occupational therapy program in the entire state until just two or three years ago. And so Charlotte was pretty instrumental in creating this relationship.

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And we admitted a cohort of students, half of them undergraduate, half of them graduate. And we were in the basement of the library at the time using, I've forgotten the name of the technology system.

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It was, oh my gosh, it was that brand new version of an approach for doing this. But the technology development was very primitive at that point. Well, whenever there was a storm, we'd lose contact over them.

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Absolutely. And I totally, I mean, Marcie and I spent so much time together midnight stuff like what do we do about this? How do we do this?

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And we were always problem solving, a lot of things going on. But the whole outreach to Western Maryland was a very big deal. And it was also a very successful program.

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And it included a nursing program, things that evolved later, a little bit later, but we found that in order for students, people, who lived in Western Maryland to be able to earn a degree, to get a graduate degree.

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And so we set it up that they could do this through Towson University with us being involved and doing a lot of phone conversation with people and helping them get going.

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And then they often came, let's say in the spring, let's say, for example, in the spring. And then they would come, you know, we'd set it up a certain day of the week that we were there or we had other faculty

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there for the teaching part. And so these individuals could really complete their degree through Towson University, but not lose their jobs, not lose all their time with their kids or

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whatever it was. So it was both available to be on site and available to be in early on virtual. It was an interesting program because the faculty

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traveled to the students in Western Maryland. The students traveled to us. They rented some vans and came to us periodically. And then we taught remotely.

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And the other program that Charlotte was mentioning that was very successful was our outreach nursing program also in Western Maryland, I think more so in Cumberland. And I think like many of the colleges within the

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university, our role or interest was trying to be kind of a workforce engine for the state, particularly with regard to healthcare. And there was real shortages of healthcare workers in the

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western part of the state. So when we developed that nursing program, which was an undergraduate nursing program, and I think it might still be going on, that was hugely successful.

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And we had to travel out there at times to do things to be available for, let's say they were having their culminating ceremony for the nursing students. So we would be out there for that activity too, and so...

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And then you mentioned an autism program a moment ago, which, tell me something about that program. Wow. Well, that's a big thing,

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let's say. Let me see how I how well I organize my notes about that. That was huge. And I don't know the... Somehow... Help me, Marcie, if I'm

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forgetting anything, I think that we were contacted by someone in the community who had a son with autism and they approached us saying, what are you doing to help people with autism?

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Like, what are you doing in your education and all this, you know, there are people out here with autism. What are you, you know, what's Towson doing to address that? And so it kind of spun from there, and trying to explore

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that, we had the new space up at the, now the IWB, and started talking with a lot of different people about how this could work, what could we do. But the big thing was that this family made a very, very

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significant donation to help us get started, and that relationship and connection still exists today. They were very involved as we were trying to launch something there with Towson so that it wasn't just, oh, these poor,

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pitiful people, you know, isn't this terrible that somebody has autism? That whole concept of, people can do a lot of things. You just need to support them in a different way or make sure

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that people are having the kind of support that they need. And so that was an enormous, it was a very big project that took a long time to kind of evolve, but allowed us also to reach out to other areas and share with them what we had

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learned at Towson about supporting people with autism, but really helping to create a way that people could feel accepted, which was the environment that we really strove to have.

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We supported people in learning how to stay welcomed and how to feel important and valued and how to have friends, and having friends, because there were a whole lot of people with autism and we had so many students that we

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educated over time. Our major funder had a catchword or phrase that really I think encapsulated his approach to it, and he had his fairly involved son, which was presumed

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competence. Yeah. You know, typically people tend to presume incompetence. You have to presume competence.

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And that's the, I think that's where, our starting point. So I worked at originally in terms wasn't an academic program, we were an outreach applied program. We were a center for adults with autism and mostly young adults,

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yes, predominantly young adults, and did all kinds of programming for them, different kinds of groups and skill building and social groups as well. Because as Charlotte said, it's a fairly isolating condition,

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a funny way to put it, but you know, lots of young folks with autism didn't have ways to socialize with each other. So our social groups were incredibly successful and well received.

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And what we did was embed our students, our occupational therapy students and students from many other disciplines as well into all of these programs that we offered because we were trying to train folks to work with people on the spectrum

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in their fields as well. I mean, often a person with autism would go and interact with someone in the healthcare world. And, you know, again, you tend to presume incompetence and don't

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have that sort of sensitivity about people on the spectrum. So our work in educating our own budding providers, healthcare providers, to interact with folks on the spectrum, I think was hugely important.

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And as you said, we, really under Charlotte's guidance, tried a number of different programs to see what would be the most successful and then started doing some research about them and exporting that.

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That's a funny way to put it, but talking with others to say, this is what we're doing in our community. And so other people would sort of pick that up as well so we can spread it. And then there would be different events

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happen. Like the OT, you know, annual meeting or something. There were lots of opportunities that we took advantage of for, you know, telling people what Towson was doing, really gave

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Towson quite a reputation. Well, it was a real gap in the knowledge. I mean, everyone I think was thirsty, you know, because autism itself is a diagnosis that's only been really well recognized for the last 50 or so years and and explosive in the

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last 20 or so. So all kinds of people who maybe had never been identified before or who hadn't self identified, we're more aware of their needs and approaches that would be beneficial for them.

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So it was just a win-win really. And now I understand that Towson has a full-fledged graduate program getting off the ground. A PhD program. Admitted its first cohort. And in some ways this work, this may be what you were heading to,

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was the catalyst for what is now our first PhD program, I think, on this campus in autism studies, which by its nature is interprofessional, interdisciplinary. It's housed within the College of Health Professions.

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One of our faculty, actually our chair of speech and audiology chairs that doctoral program, but they developed it with faculty from education and psychology and probably Mass Comm and English.

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And we had a big working group from all over campus because it's, you know, it is an interdisciplinary approach. We have admitted our first cohort and I think we'll admit the second cohort this fall.

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I'm going to shift the gear a little bit here to focus on students. Earlier you said, Marcie, that when you first came here, most of the students were were students who were commuter

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students. Over the time that you were both here, did you see any changes in the student population at all? More students, a bigger group. A bigger group.

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Occupational therapy became really, I'm not attributing it all to Towson, but occupational therapy was becoming more and more a profession that was seen and known by other people. As opposed to, I think, early on, my earliest days, it was

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like, what? What are you doing? What are you studying? I never heard of that. That was often the reaction that I would get, like, what is that?

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I never heard of it. And so, but now occupational therapy is very well known and has a great support. Well, you know, as a private citizen, I was and still do live

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in Towson. You lived in Towson, around it, for many, many years. So as this university kept building more and more residence halls, it was clear this was no longer a commuter campus.

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There were thousands of students in this area. And I know because I tried to maneuver through them sometimes yto get to the grocery store or whatever, they're everywhere.

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So, and that really changed the climate even of downtown Towson. It was fun in a way. I mean, it was for both of us.

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It was the undergraduate experience we had had being at a large school where most people stayed on campus or lived in and around campus. So I think that absolutely changed the tenor of this being

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more of an all-around 24/7 kind of environment for students in a way that it had not been before. When you first started teaching here and you had some, excuse me, students majoring in occupational therapy,

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what kind of careers were they preparing for? And did that change over the time that you were here? Did those careers change in any way? Well, they were clearly preparing to become occupational

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therapists and, you know, be able to work at a hospital or some other kind of place. It was so much more common to, you know, if you have something that's a physical problem, maybe you go see an occupational

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therapist. It wasn't all about PT, for example. And that was evolving in that time period. You know, this was an entry level and continues to be an

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entry level clinical professional role. So our students were training to be clinicians. If anything evolved in my mind, it evolved along with the changes in healthcare altogether.

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For example, back in 1983 was a watershed year for healthcare altogether because of some changes in funding and what used to be a largely inpatient world, people lived in, you know, got their treatment and care

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in hospitals, much of it moved to the outpatient community. So we were training our students to work in clinical roles, but they weren't only in inpatient institutions anymore. They were in outpatient settings, they were in community based

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settings, they were in long term care, they were in schools. Schools was huge. So they were, where they went to work and the kinds of roles that they took on expanded, I think, exponentially at the same time

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that healthcare did. Yeah. And I think that the the mix together too, of the fact that schools were starting to become more accepting of having kids

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with disabilities in the classroom. And so it was mandatory that schools accommodate children who had challenges, disabilities of any kind. And that was, you know, occupational therapists played a

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key role, I think, in evolving that and taking a role in the schools. It wasn't just all in the hospitals or other places that it maybe was earlier.

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So with those changes, did there have to be changes in pedagogy in occupational therapy? To my mind, the scope of practice expanded, so therefore more content had to be taught.

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And that's also why the profession, along with many health professions, went from a mandatory baccalaureate entry level to a mandatory master's degree entry level. And now it's at, most schools actually are at a doctoral entry

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level. So, and largely, again, because the knowledge base in order to be able to manage that scope of practice had grown, so the educational requirements did as well.

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In terms of pedagogy, yes, I think there were some changes because we were teaching more graduate students now, in fact, so they come, and again, we've always been a screened, competitive program, so we would have, we would

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admit maybe a group of 60 per year cohort, but have two or three times that many applicants. So they were, you know, in terms of students, they were type-A personalities, you know, up the wazoo because they had

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worked so hard to get into a competitive program. So some of the pedagogy had to do with, you know, using technology better and teaching in some kind of group kind of way so that they would be able to be part of

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interdisciplinary teams when they emerged into practice. So yeah, absolutely. Going to the more lighter side, do you do you have any anecdotes or humorous stories about your time at Towson?

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You know, when I saw that on the list, I thought humorous, fun? I mean, like... There has to be some stories. There were lots of wonderful experiences that I had, but I don't know whether you call them fitting in that category.

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Maybe Marcie has some better thoughts on that one. You know, what comes to mind is probably not all that appropriate, but because it's... We were a small world and most of our faculty were very involved with the professional

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associations at both the state and the national level. In fact, Charlotte actually was instrumental in the state of Maryland for getting licensure passed for occupational therapists. That was back in the 70s.

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That was an enormous effort which she largely spearheaded. And so we were very... and I was, I think for maybe 15 years, the representative from Maryland to our... State rep to our National Association.

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So they were all, you know, we went to meetings all around the country, and when you start getting people together, they start to drink. Yeah.

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And we had a group and said, we need some units. And it took me a long time to understand that units meant, you know, bottles of wine. But when you and I went to San Antonio... Oh yeah.

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Oh my gosh, that was a great trip too. But yeah, we did a lot of sharing and, and I think the profession, at least my experience with it, you know, was, like, a lot of interesting collegial sharing of what

00:28:58.350 - 00:29:13.240

you know, what you, you know, what you've experienced. So it's... And there would be presentations, but also a lot of the OTs sharing experiences and, you know, reaching out to other people.

00:29:13.240 - 00:29:21.620

How do you do this? What do I do about that? You know, kind of thing. But so that was also always part of the culture that... I think

00:29:21.620 - 00:29:31.440

that we fed that to the students as well in a lot of ways, that this is what you do. You're a professional. This is how professionals work.

00:29:32.360 - 00:29:41.380

And that was a funny line. I mean, we just definitely did that. But what we'd also tell the students is that tomorrow you're going to be our colleague and in the year you're going to be

00:29:41.380 - 00:29:50.400

taking care of me in the hospital. Yeah. We needed to make sure that there was that kind of... Good point.

00:29:50.600 - 00:29:57.160

Wonderful. Well, I can tell by listening to both of you that you have a special affection for Towson. And what do you think it is

00:29:57.160 - 00:30:15.480

that makes Towson a special university? Wow, there were a lot of things in my experience, there were, if you had an idea of something that you thought would be really good to have, you know, like, oh, it'd be great if

00:30:15.480 - 00:30:32.490

we could do X or Y. There were a lot of times where that could happen, or that would really work. So let's say when we had those individuals with autism, and

00:30:32.490 - 00:30:49.350

then one thing that sticks in my mind is how we tried to include them in the sports games and the things that were happening at events too. And, you know, supporting people and doing that sort of thing too

00:30:49.350 - 00:31:03.160

and trying to represent that, yes, people, you know, people can enjoy sports whether they have autism or not, assuming that they want to do that. I don't know if that's kind of an example.

00:31:03.160 - 00:31:18.200

Yeah. I think similarly. But what strikes me as a huge asset and, well, just a positive feature of Towson is its commitment to students. Charlotte has talked a lot about research, and certainly our

00:31:18.200 - 00:31:28.760

field has moved into that, and it's become a bigger presence on this campus, as it should be. I do believe we're about generating knowledge, but I still believe fundamentally the university stays committed to

00:31:28.760 - 00:31:39.120

student education. And I really admire that. It spoke to me as, I mean, we all engaged in research. I did my own work as well and thoroughly enjoyed it.

00:31:39.120 - 00:31:53.070

But truthfully, my heart lay in connecting with these students and helping them realize their potential. And even to the extent, I think, across the campus, even some of the big, the 1 and 200 level courses, the undergraduate

00:31:53.070 - 00:32:04.480

courses, there weren't lectures of 2 and 300 students very frequently that I'm aware of. Students were grouped into smaller units, just given more personal attention.

00:32:04.480 - 00:32:16.120

And I thought, I appreciated that approach as a student myself when I had been a student. And I appreciated an institution that valued that. Yeah, I agree with that.

00:32:16.120 - 00:32:25.160

I've taught at four different universities before coming here. And this commitment to students at Towson, I agree, makes it a very special place. It's the best place I've ever taught at.

00:32:25.840 - 00:32:38.160

I feel, I did always feel that that was the priority. Like, there are a lot of other things you could focus on, but how, you know, is this supporting the students? Is this a good thing for the students?

00:32:38.160 - 00:32:52.960

And how do you, how can we better support the student? So, you know, so that it was always something about... Seemed like a lot of focus on how can we do things a little better? How can we do things for more people?

00:32:52.960 - 00:33:03.320

Or whatever. I felt that in addition to what we were doing academically to support students and help them grow, the infrastructure of the university just wrapped itself around students quite well.

00:33:03.440 - 00:33:13.230

I thought the support services were always stellar. Yes. Availability and accessibility for students to get their needs met, I thought was quite well done and continues to be an

00:33:13.230 - 00:33:19.400

asset. Yes. Well, it's time to look into, excuse me, the crystal ball. The year is 2024.

00:33:20.000 - 00:33:33.000

What do you see for Towson 20 years from now? What's the institution going to look like? I feel that there's an enormous national dialogue about the higher ed that's been going on and will continue to go on.

00:33:33.000 - 00:33:46.310

And in some ways I feel that our system is unsustainable. And I hope in a way that that's not the case because I do feel that this, particularly that four year passage, this K through 16 notion, is important for students' maturation and so

00:33:46.310 - 00:33:54.560

forth. And at the same time, the economies don't work for many, many people. And it's certainly in healthcare and I'm certain in

00:33:54.560 - 00:34:07.280

other fields as well, there's a pressure to be much more nimble, much more streamlined to get qualified people out into the workforce more quickly and efficiently to assume the roles that they're going to need to do.

00:34:07.280 - 00:34:17.480

So, I don't know how many people will have the luxury and the latitude to approach to higher ed the way we do currently now.

00:34:17.480 - 00:34:28.500

I would hate to see this sort of foundational general education concept go away. I think it's so critically important for students to have that sort of exposure and be wrestling with those kinds of

00:34:28.500 - 00:34:41.870

questions. And at the same time, I suspect that it will not be the model for many, many people, but I think that there will be other avenues to professional careers other than the model that we're

00:34:41.870 - 00:34:52.440

currently, the traditional model that we're currently looking at. I understand also that you were involved in a lot of outreach programs with the university. Why don't you tell us about some of those?

00:34:54.440 - 00:35:10.950

So one of the areas that I think that we're the most proud of, that I'm the most proud of, has to do with our work in Cherry Hill, which is a community in South Baltimore, fairly impoverished community that the university made a commitment to

00:35:10.950 - 00:35:25.300

through the university president at the time. And much of the efforts initially started with the College of Education under that Dean's leadership, under Ray Lorion, where they went into schools, they did all kinds of

00:35:25.300 - 00:35:33.400

teacher preparation. They had their students go in there, they developed programs and they really worked at trying to bring up standards and and teach new skills and so forth.

00:35:34.880 - 00:35:51.590

Other colleges were also involved with Cherry Hill and I was fortunate enough with a couple of my colleagues, Beth Merryman and Jill Bush, to receive a grant from Office of Minority Health from DHHS, Department of Health and

00:35:51.590 - 00:36:07.530

Human Services to provide a program that we called PALS, which stood for Partners in Academic and Life Success. And for four years, we followed a cohort of 30 basically adolescent people, kids between the ages of 11 and 14, and

00:36:07.530 - 00:36:23.720

provided a really comprehensive program on site in their community that was both related to physical health and emotional health, psychosocial health. And we did weekend programs, we did weekday afternoon programs.

00:36:23.720 - 00:36:37.480

We brought them here for summer camp. And the intention was to try to obviously improve all those variables, all those indicators or measures with regard to physical and emotional health, that it would...

00:36:38.160 - 00:36:49.750

Cherry Hill was one of the original food deserts, so that there wasn't actually even a full service grocery store in the community. Lots of, you know, the little corner stores and chicken box

00:36:49.750 - 00:37:00.580

places. So overall nutritional health was poor. And so that was one of the areas we focused on. I wish we had been able to stay in that community, but I think

00:37:00.580 - 00:37:07.200

that we did so good and we involved quite a number of our students as well. I was very impressed with, pleased with that outreach effort.

00:37:07.200 - 00:37:21.690

And again, we weren't the only ones, other colleges were involved as well. And I think what you're addressing also is how so much of anything that we did, it wasn't just like, oh, I can get

00:37:21.690 - 00:37:35.480

an accolade for, you know, doing this project or that project. This was not our world in that sort of thing. It was like, what do the students need? What can we offer?

00:37:35.720 - 00:37:47.740

You know, how do we support... And Marcie was also, we together did some of this and then Marcie did a whole lot of this. There were only two physician assistant programs in the state

00:37:47.740 - 00:37:59.670

of Maryland and they were both housed in community colleges. And ironically, physician assistant education even then was graduate level education. So, which is not consistent, right, with what you could offer

00:37:59.670 - 00:38:11.120

at a community college. They were very much an outlier there and they reached out to us to form a relationship and we had a joint CCBC-Towson University Physician Assistant program

00:38:11.160 - 00:38:25.520

for many, many years, quite successfully. Well, it was not without some... Oh, it was, took some, let's say it took some diplomacy, activity... And miracles, occasionally miracles.

00:38:25.680 - 00:38:38.270

Marcie and I had a number of discussions around... Gray hair. And two years ago the program officially became totally Towson's, but for all of that ten years... But the point being

00:38:38.270 - 00:38:48.600

also that, you know, it was another competitive screened program. We would bring in a cohort of 35, 36 per year, but would have upwards of 900 applicants and that was not uncommon in

00:38:48.600 - 00:38:58.160

physician assistant programs nationwide. It's just, physician assistants, PA is a hugely growing field in terms of providing primary care in particular.

00:38:58.600 - 00:39:16.410

So our work and sustaining that program and bringing it into a true level of graduate education at the same time preparing these people to go out and take care of patients immediately, we used to talk about PA education as drinking through a fire

00:39:16.410 - 00:39:27.330

hose. It was 26 months of intensity, of crazy intensity. Yes. And this was all in, simultaneously Marcie and I were

00:39:27.330 - 00:39:45.600

doing all kinds of other things at the university and then Marcie directly navigating a lot of this and me being somewhat responsible in my Dean role for how things evolved. See, in my innocence,

00:39:45.600 - 00:39:58.560

When Charlotte created that Assistant Dean position, she said, well, how about you handle some of these outreach things? OK, it can't be hard. Yes, it was, like, a lot of outreach things that we did, yes.

00:39:58.800 - 00:40:10.320

But they were great. I mean, it was tremendously exhausting and and challenging, but tremendously successful and gratifying as well. We developed an allied health program also with

00:40:10.480 - 00:40:26.270

CCBC, it was a baccalaureate degree for people who came out of associate degree programs in health fields. They were respiratory therapists and phlebotomists and radiographers and occupational physical therapy assistants and

00:40:26.270 - 00:40:38.200

medical assistants and you name it. Those students had two year programs, very, very challenging. They basically got all of their clinical training through

00:40:38.200 - 00:40:48.270

their associate's degree, but nothing else that told them about the healthcare environment and the healthcare world. So we developed this wraparound baccalaureate degree in

00:40:48.270 - 00:40:56.990

connection with them and the whole thing was completely online. We got some funding to develop. We were the only, in fact, we might still be the only fully

00:40:56.990 - 00:41:08.000

online undergraduate program at Towson, that allied health program, which I was very, very proud of that. Yes, it was, it was another thing, we could usually think of,

00:41:08.120 - 00:41:20.680

Well, maybe we could do this, you know, this month, maybe we could do this, you know, but how do we do this? Well, you've heard many presidents of the university say we are the workforce engine of the state.

00:41:20.680 - 00:41:32.000

And certainly with regard to healthcare in Towson, our College of Health Professions graduated the highest number of people in health professions in our combined undergraduate and graduate program.

00:41:32.000 - 00:41:45.320

So we really were a huge supplier within this area and felt keenly that we wanted to get people where they were needed in the fields that they were needed. Well, I can tell you were a wonderful team when you were

00:41:45.320 - 00:41:50.800

here on campus. And I also want to compliment you for being a wonderful team today. Thank you very much.

00:41:51.000 - 00:41:59.560

Wish you much happiness too. Thank you so much. Thank you for having us. Well, this was actually, I would say, a pleasure to have the

00:41:59.560 - 00:42:13.200

opportunity to, I don't know, talk about this stuff. Well, you can tell we sort of have a passion, and we always were that way. And now it's preserved. And a fondness for Towson.

00:42:14.280 - 00:42:18.240

Yes. And a commitment for a long time. Yeah. Towson can do this.

00:42:18.240 - 00:42:28.280

Yeah. You know, and other places would say, oh, no, we can't do that. Say, we can do that. I mean, I think one of the... Usually it was a plus.

00:42:28.440 - 00:42:37.000

Marcie and I could come up with all kinds of things that we could be doing. We'd go, like, what did we do? Whose big idea was that?

00:42:37.120 - 00:42:47.720

Yeah. Yeah. What strikes me, what I remember with with chagrin is when we were in line for development of a new building.

00:42:47.960 - 00:43:04.880

Oh my gosh, yes. What was... Bob Caret came back as president and he, you know, because he's the science guy, yanked us out of line and put himself in first, his College in first.

00:43:05.200 - 00:43:17.040

And so, you know, we had troubled and tripled in size with regard to just student enrollment and and darn it if he didn't take us out of that state lineup for a new building. And you know, we are now just opening,

00:43:17.320 - 00:43:26.000

we had a soft opening this summer and a full opening this fall, but that was long delayed and met with much dissatisfaction. Yes.

00:43:27.080 - 00:43:36.560

So in terms of, well, what are we going to do? Because then everybody else had moved out of Linthicum. They were trying to implode that building. It was such a, you know, prison fortress kind of thing.

00:43:36.560 - 00:43:45.500

But no, they moved us into it. In terms of enrollment, we're the biggest college and we're just crammed into little places all over. At one point we used to say this, we were in seven or eight

00:43:45.500 - 00:43:56.040

different buildings on the campus, we were all over the place. And so coming together under one roof in this open, airy, light, light filled, lots of windows building.

00:43:56.040 - 00:44:11.120

It's conducive to education and health and our clinical space is finally of the size and quality and caliber that it should be and it presents very well. Are patients served in that new building?

00:44:11.360 - 00:44:26.880

No, our outreach centers like the hearing and balance patients are seen in this building and our Institute for Well-Being, we keep saying that shortcut, IWB, is now at 7400 York Road and that's where we see patients in occupational therapy.

00:44:26.880 - 00:44:37.880

We run a Wellness Center, Ray I'm sure will talk a lot about the Wellness Center and all of the older adults that we've served from a level 5 cardiac rehab program.

00:44:38.160 - 00:44:49.000

Those people are in our outreach centers. But no, we don't see patients in the academic building. Can you imagine trying to park? The Autism Center has moved to be further down.

00:44:49.000 - 00:44:55.920

Well, it's part of the IWB. It's at 7400. And there's parking down there. Yeah, it's right next to that church.

00:44:55.920 - 00:45:01.880

It's got really nice, big size. Osher used to be in that. And Osher moved out. We moved in, yeah.

00:45:01.880 - 00:45:11.920

And it's a great facility now. Well, thank you both for a wonderful interview. We very much appreciate it. You contributed greatly to the TURFA oral history project.

00:45:12.160 - 00:45:19.880

And Charlotte and Marcie, best wishes to you both. Thank you. Thank you so much for having us. Yeah, this was very...

00:45:20.960 - 00:45:22.720

Yeah, this was very enjoyable.