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ОТ Doctoral Program Marks Another Milestone for Bay Path
It's been well-documented that Bay Path University President Carol Leary would prefer to interview every candidate for every position being filled at the 120-year-old institution.
There's a reason for that - actually, several of them. For starters, she understands that people are the key to any organization's success, and she wants to be part of the process of putting this team together.
Beyond that, though, Leary has told BusinessWest on more than a few occasions that she's looking for certain things when she's sitting across the desk or table from a job candidate. Beyond the obvious skill sets required of those in specific positions, she's also looking for those who are energetic, innovative, and entrepreneurial.
Those qualities, usually detectable through certain questions she opted not to share, are largely responsible for the meteoric rise in size and prominence of Bay Path since Leary arrived at the Longmeadow campus in 1994. Indeed, individuals with these traits have driven growth that has manifested itself in everything from continued success and expansion of the Women's Professional Leadership Conference to a host of new programs of study, such as a degree offering in cybersecurity; from creation of the American Women's College, which offers a broad range of programs online and in the classroom, to the significant name change at the school, swapping the word 'college' for 'university.'
And now, there is another milestone directly attributable to innovation and entrepreneurship - the university's first doctoral degree offering, in occupational therapy.
Set to launch this fall - an open house for the program was staged late last week - this fully online offering, like many that have been developed over the course of the school's history, was created in direct response to need within the community, said Leary.
"Since 1897, Bay Path has been a very innovative institution because it has always educated for the workforce," she explained. "And that history is part of our DNA."
Tracing some of that history, specifically the chapter that pertains to this latest milestone, Leary noted that, when she arrived at the school in 1994, it had just opened the box...