The Colorado Mesa University’s athletic training program will no longer be offered as a major for incoming freshman. This major will no longer be offered nationwide.
The National Athletic Trainers’ Association (NATA), the Commission on Accreditation of Athletic Training Education (CAATE) and the Board of Certification (BOC) are the three organizations that oversee athletic training as a profession.
In the summer of 2015, all three organizations decided that students can no longer become athletic trainers through an undergraduate program. They mandated that the education must exist at the master’s degree level by the fall of 2022.
However, CMU decided to pursue this option sooner and will voluntarily withdraw the undergraduate program as soon as May 2019.
“With the need to transition on the horizon, in addition to needing to come into compliance with this standard, I felt that withdrawing our undergraduate accreditation with the intent to build a graduate program was the best way to go,” Jeremy Hawkins, head of the kinesiology department, said.
Current sophomores, juniors and seniors will be able to graduate out of this program. However, this year’s freshman class is of most concern regarding this change to the program. Many of them came to CMU for this program, and now it is disappearing.
“We were told that our class would get our bachelors, but then they changed it all of a sudden to 2019, basically putting us in a state of limbo,” freshman Sam Longo said. “The reason I came out of state is because they had the athletic training bachelor’s program here, unlike most universities.”
While freshmen students worry about having to change majors, Hawkins is looking for other options for students.
“We are still looking into this and at other options for students,” Hawkins said.
The idea is that students would progress through a major (most likely exercise science) until they have reached 90 credit hours and then would be able to pursue the master’s degree in athletic training. Essentially, it will be a five-year program starting in the summer or fall of 2019, allowing this year’s freshman to still graduate from CMU in athletic training.
Twenty students were accepted into the athletic training program this past January. Currently, 18 sophomores, 14 juniors and 15 seniors remain in the program. All of these students will be able to graduate with a bachelor’s degree in athletic training.
For sophomores that applied for the program in December, but were not accepted, their applications will be re-evaluated. If they have completed all prerequisites, they may also be able to graduate with a bachelor’s degree in 2019.
“In the long run, everything will be really different,” sophomore Madison Gayton said. “Right now, we are used to having juniors and seniors at all our rotations, but my senior year, we won’t have juniors or sophomores working with us anymore. I don’t know what to expect from this.”
She is thrilled she was accepted in January and made the cut off for this bachelor’s degree.
“It’s kind of hard to see a future of where this field will go, though,” Gayton said.
