Many Toros through the years have gone on to earn doctoral degrees after graduating from CSUDH, but they always had to go somewhere else to do it. Until now, that is.

The 17 students who began the Occupational Therapy Doctoral program this school year are the inaugural cohort for the first doctorate offered at CSUDH.

Historically, the CSU system only offered bachelor’s and master’s degrees, with doctoral programs reserved for UC campuses. That changed when the state legislature authorized a select number of doctoral programs at CSU institutions, with the caveat that they can’t duplicate existing degrees offered by any UC.

Gaining approval for such programs requires meeting a high standard, said Vice Provost Ken O’Donnell. “You need a more vigorous research agenda than you did before, and faculty have to be ready to pull students up to a level that they may have been at themselves not that long ago. That perspective shift is really the hard part.”

Students in the OTD program come from different backgrounds, but they all share a drive to succeed, both as individuals and as trailblazers in a new institutional program. Alyanna Paulino graduated from UCLA and considered becoming a doctor, but after working as an EMT, learned about other health specializations. “Listening to patients talk about how OT had improved their lives really showed me that as a discipline, it offered so much of what I was passionate about.”

The OTD is just one of several new doctoral degrees CSUDH plans to launch in the next few years, including a Doctor of Education (Ed.D) program in Summer 2024 and a Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) in 2025.

Mi-Sook Kim, dean of the College of Health, Human Services and Nursing, said the OTD program represented a significant milestone. “It not only provides a pathway for students from diverse backgrounds to achieve the highest level of expertise in OT, but also contributes to the advancement of the field.”

Part of that advancement lies in the contributions the OTD can make in creating greater diversity in the field, said Sheryl Ryan, an assistant professor and capstone coordinator for the program. “We’re currently in a moment where there’s a lot of change happening in the profession. We want to build greater cultural, sexual, and gender diversity so that future leaders in the field can break new ground, and I think CSUDH is uniquely placed to be a conduit for that.”

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