Athletic Training moving to graduate level

Heidelberg’s athletic training program has been expanding in numbers and quality, keeping pace with a national trend that lists the profession in the top 10 in terms of growth over the past five years. Beginning in the fall of 2021, they’ll be taking it to the next level -- the graduate level. Current freshmen will be the last class to complete the four-year undergraduate athletic training degree before the program transitions to a graduate-degree program, according to ATR Program Director Ryan Musgrave.

“Athletic training has been a very productive and popular undergraduate major at Heidelberg,” Ryan said. “We are confident that this will continue at the graduate level. ATR students are not only academic assets to the university but they also fill an important role as clinical students who provide supervised care for our student-athletes as well as the surrounding Tiffin and Seneca County communities.”

Students starting school in the fall of 2018 will have a number of options to pursue if their career goal is to become an athletic trainer, Ryan explained. The best pathway would be to major in Health Science; other majors such as biology and psychology are good options as well. 

The change is being mandated by the Commission on Accreditation of Athletic Training Education, the accrediting agency for Heidelberg’s ATR program. In the coming weeks and months, work will continue toward approval by the Ohio Department of Higher Education and the Higher Learning Commission.