How can the academic culture move toward occupation-centered education?

A key factor in the development of occupation-centered practice is the transirion within academia to occupation-cenrered education. Educational programs must be able ro prepare clinicians who value and understand occupation and who have the abiliry to readily and arriculately rranslate occupation ro meaningful therapy programs at the individual and group levels of inrervention. In order for educarional programs ro make this tramition, academicians face rwo levels of challenge. They must value and understand occupation themselves if they are ro translate that knowledge to courses, learning objectives, evaluative activiries, and educational outcomes. Educational programs must also initiate a volunrary curriculum change. The faculry members must see the need for change, initiate changes, and be motivated to engage in the demanding internal debate, study, and development that underlie substanrive curriculum change. The occuparional therapy faculry members at the Universiry ofNorrh Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH) have completed a 3year process ofcurriculum revision that eStablishes occupational science as the foundarion of the curriculum. The faculry members revamped the enrire curriculum from mission statement to educarional outcomes. The experience of the UNC-CH faculry members is an example of faculry members voluntarily meeting the challenges of developing an occupation-cenrered curriculum and successfully working through the change process as a team. Although both challenges are important, it is the second level of challenge that must be addressed first in Cathy Nielson