The CUAA OTD class of 2025 received glowing reviews from fieldwork educators upon the completion of their Level II clinical placements.
On the heels of receiving the full seven-year accreditation approval from the Accreditation Council for Occupational Therapy Education, Concordia University Ann Arbor’s entry-level Doctor of Occupational Therapy program is receiving glowing praise from fieldwork educators.
The OTD class of 2025 recently completed their second and final Level II clinical placement. One of CUAA’s fieldwork supervisors was so impressed with the preparedness of the CUAA candidate she was assigned to that she felt compelled to volunteer her feedback to CUAA faculty.
“Your program is doing a wonderful job preparing students,” wrote Marylynn Ewald, OTRL, who works for Mary Free Bed at Covenant HealthCare. “Please send more my way.”
Ewald supervised CUAA OTD candidate Sarah Matlock fulltime from August through November 2025, calling Sarah “one of the best students I ever had.”
“It was a pleasure to mentor Sarah,” wrote Ewald. “She will do great things in the future.”
Your program is doing a wonderful job preparing students. Please send more my way.
What are clinical placements?
Clinical placements are onsite work/learning assignments at hospitals, clinics, or community-based professional sites. They are designed to help students further develop their skills in client care as they assume a caseload of clients to help them prepare to be entry-level generalist OT practitioners.
CUAA OTD students engage in two Level I clinicals throughout their program experience, which each last for 12 weeks. Level II placements, meanwhile, take place at the beginning of Year 3, after students have completed their didactic coursework. Level II clinicals run from May through August and August through November.
Why are clinical placements important?
Clinical placements give students the opportunity to practice in real-world settings. Students have the opportunity to work with and be supervised by licensed professionals to build skills, clinical reasoning, documentation, and client-centered care prior to sitting for the National Board for Certification of Occupational Therapists (NBCOT) Examination. These fieldwork educators and clinical experiences help students bridge the gap between what they learn in the classroom and how they can apply it in an actual professional setting to assist clients in meeting goals.
What does it mean if fieldwork educators are impressed with a program’s candidates?
Jennifer Engja, OTD, MSOT, OTRL serves as CUAA’s Academic Fieldwork Coordinator for the OTDe program. She explains that when a fieldwork educator offers praise for a candidate, it’s a good indication that the student has not only met but exceeded expectations and that they were well-prepared for the rotation.
“Fieldwork educators are experienced clinicians. Many have been practicing for years in their setting and have engaged with multiple students within that time,” Engja says. They are responsible for evaluating whether students are competent enough to practice as an entry-level generalist OT. A positive review from a fieldwork educator is a direct reflection of how well the CUAA OT program has prepared students for clinical practice including documentation, client rapport, evaluation and intervention approaches, safety, and therapeutic use of self.”
Want in?
CUAA’s OTDe program is now accepting applicants for the 2025-26 academic year. CUAA accepts 28 students each year for its three-year program of study. The university also offers a Bachelor of Science in Rehabilitation Science (BSRS) program, which is the undergraduate precursor to the OTDe, and students who begin their undergraduate experience at CUAA have the opportunity to enroll in an accelerated path to their bachelor’s and doctoral completion.
Program threads include occupation as a centering concept, spirituality as a lens through which students view the client, professional identity as the foundation for practice, deliberate practice and advocacy as primary tools for addressing occupational performance, and an innovative, engaged, and transformative curriculum design.