Posted 2:07 p.m. Monday, July 19, 2021
UW-La Crosse has been selected to become one of the first U.S. universities to help bring the athletic training profession to Europe.
The UW-L Athletic Training Program has received a $400,000 grant to send UW-L students to Germany and Spain in an effort to internationalize the field of study.
The Department of Education, Fund for Improvement of Post-Secondary Education, funded $180,000 of the grant, which was supplemented by European partners from Goethe University of Frankfurt am Main, Germany, and the University of Granada, Spain. Chapman University in Orange, Calif., is the other U.S. higher ed partner.
Mark Gibson, Director of the UW-L Athletic Training Program, says the Sports Medical Athletic Therapist International Exchange will allow the university’s athletic training students to study in the discipline overseas for the first time. And, he expects the move to open the door to athletic training in the European Union.
“Colleagues in Germany have been positive and encouraging,” explains Gibson. “ They see the athletic training model to be useful as a health care model for people who are physically active.”
Gibson says the new agreement will allow at least three UW-L students to study in Germany or Spain during each of the next four years. The students will take courses in the native language related to athletic training. They will stay on track in their coursework and be able to graduate with their respective cohort class.
Meanwhile, UW-L will host students from Germany and Spain. The students will take athletic training courses and return home to help introduce the athletic training profession to Europe. The first German in the program arrived on campus earlier this fall. Gibson says the exchange will enable students to gain insight into the healthcare and sports medicine cultures of a different continent. That opportunity will give them an advantage when they begin their professional careers, he says.
U.S. students completing the exchange will be awarded an international sports medicine minor while European students will gain a certificate in sports medical athletic therapy.
The exchange will help faculty too, notes Gibson. Benefits, he says, will include discovering more about medical and exercise science relationships overseas, getting feedback on teaching styles from students from a different culture, and opportunities for new research and scholarly activity across the Atlantic. See more about the UW-L athletic training program at: http://twww.uwlax.edu/athletictraining.