Two Decades of Innovation
The health professions have a long and distinguished history at MU. But it wasn’t until 2001 that the School of Health Professions became an independent school on campus — a shift that set in motion tremendous growth and new directions in education, service and research. Twenty years ago, the School of Health Related Professions was a unit within the School of Medicine. Many of its programs, which enrolled just over 500 students a year, were hospital-based. The school had limited resources and lacked the capacity to expand. And the term “related” left a bad taste in the mouth of many faculty members. The time was right for a new identity. The faculty, spearheaded by Director Richard Oliver, BS MT ’71, M Ed ’73, PhD ’77, petitioned the board of curators to become a freestanding school, and in 2001, the School of Health Professions was born. “When a university has...
