OT ‘Elite’ Status Draws Top Students. Dr. Barbara Schell, the gregarious founding director of the School of Occupational Therapy, quips that her department will use any excuse to gather around a cake to celebrate. For example, they had a cake-cutting for the first day of school for the eight candidates enrolled in the inaugural OT doctoral program at the beginning of the 2014-15 academic year. However, that low-key launch of Brenau’s second doctoral program really was cake-worthy. It symbolized the school’s rite of passage into the circle of elites of North American OT education.

Why is that exalted status significant? For the fewer than 100 slots available in immediately upcoming masters and doctoral cohorts, Brenau received more than 800 applications. For those accepted to the program, the average undergraduate GPA edged above 3.6 on a 4.0 scale – meaning Brenau gets the pick of the litter among top prospects. “That,” says Schell, “is something worth celebrating.”

Physical Therapy Opens Doors to First Doctoral Class. They came from Alaska, California, Puerto Rico, Ohio, Michigan. “I’d say that of the 40 we admitted, at least half are from outside of Georgia,” said Dr. Kathye Light, chair of the Brenau Department of Physical Therapy. She is speaking about candidates in Brenau’s newest doctoral program, which started classes in May at Brenau Downtown Center in Gainesville. All told, 40 people enrolled – a full house for the first three-year cohort. Part of the $12.5 million ForeverGold health and sciences initiative, the school will grow gradually to 200 students in various stages of work on the Doctor of Physical Therapy degree at all times. The first group of doctoral candidates is breaking in the latest addition to the Downtown Center – a 10-station human anatomy lab that opened just as new students arrived.

Mother with Child. Peek into one of the rooms at the School of Nursing on Brenau East campus in Gainesville and you could meet a new patient, Noelle – blonde, blue hospital gown, has an infant, and, oh yeah, made of plastic and metal. Noelle is the newest resident of the school’s enviable human simulator colony, the birthing module that provides student nurses with patient care experience in a variety of critical and noncritical scenarios – all drilled thoroughly so students, confronting humans in real clinical settings, get it right. Noelle is part of the technology upgrades the school started or completed during the 2014-15 academic year to keep current the Brenau health professions program that has produced thousands of nurses for the region.