Apr. 4, 2022
President Sauers Discusses Major Advances During Town Hall
In March, the CAATE held a town hall to provide stakeholders with important information impacting athletic training education and a forum for questions and discussion. During the town hall, CAATE President Eric Sauers, Ph.D., ATC, FNATA, discussed the numerous advances made in the strategic initiatives, including newly created accreditation councils, investments to support accredited programs and stakeholders, current program numbers and changes to the bright-line pass rate standard, as well as hosted a question-and-answer session.
For those who were unable to attend, a recording of the meeting is available here.
Changes to Bright-Line Pass Rate Standards
The CAATE Board of Commissioners voted to vacate the bright-line, first-time pass rate standard and charged the Standards Committee with developing standards related to program-defined benchmarks for outcomes that, at minimum, will include the program graduation rate, retention rate, graduate placement rate and the pass rate on the Board of Commissioners Examination. The Board reviewed a number of factors, including the historical objective of adding the standards, contemporary use of bright-line standards by other health care accrediting organizations, and the impact on student diversity and holistic admissions practices.
Read the full announcement.
2019-2020 CAATE Analytic Report Now Available
The 2019-2020 CAATE Analytic Report is now available on the CAATE website. Released annually, this seventh edition of the CAATE Annual Report contains detailed demographic information about the accredited programs at the professional, post-professional degree and residency levels.
View the report.
Save the Date for the 2022 CAATE Annual Accreditation Conference
Save the date to join your colleagues and peers Oct. 7-8 at the 2022 CAATE Accreditation Conference in Atlanta, Georgia, at the Hilton Atlanta Downtown Hotel.
Watch the CAATE website for the latest event details.
Volunteer Spotlight: Lindsey Eberman, Ph.D., LAT, ATC
Like many in the profession, Lindsey Eberman, Ph.D., LAT, ATC, was a student-athlete who fell in love with athletic training while shadowing her school’s own athletic trainer. This love soon took her to Northeastern University, where she studied to become an athletic trainer, and later Florida International University, where she sought a post-professional athletic training education.
It was at Florida International University where Eberman developed an interest in research, as well as a desire to mentor and teach, thanks to an opportunity to provide health care services to several secondary school student-athletes. This experience further inspired her to advance her athletic training education, and she soon pursued an academic doctorate in curriculum and instruction with a specialization in athletic training education.
Eberman is a third-generation, doctorally-trained member of her family and attributes much of her motivation to a strong sense of commitment to use racial and educational privileges to enable learners’ social mobility. Thanks to her job as a professor, she is able to help others forge a path for themselves, using education as a means for personal and professional fulfillment.
Her motivation doesn’t stop there. In 2015, she began advocacy work for members of the LGBTQ+ community and, year after year, her program’s alumni have come back to partner and support scholarship that result in more equitable care for LGBTQ+ patients and improvements in workplace conditions for athletic trainers within the community. Seven years later, her efforts have not gone unnoticed; she will be awarded the LGBTQ+ Inclusive Excellence Award at the NATA Annual Meeting — an honor she attributes to the hard work her team and participants have contributed to provide more equitable spaces in athletic training health care.
Volunteering With the CAATE
Eberman has served in multiple volunteer roles with the CAATE over the years, beginning as a peer reviewer, where she supported both professional and residency programs seeking accreditation.
“I found the role really important to creating a partnership between the program and the CAATE,” says Eberman. “I have always felt the process of peer review was to be supportive and intended to help programs become accredited, versus confrontational or adversarial.”
From there, she led an ad hoc committee tasked with reviewing the viability of accreditation for post-professional doctoral programs and also represented the CAATE on the Research and Agenda Taskforce, which was responsible for developing the Prioritized Research Agenda of the Athletic Training Profession.
These days, Eberman serves as the Education Committee chair, a position in which she has been steering multiple initiatives and goals for bettering the CAATE experience for all involved with the organization. Under her direction, the Education Committee continues to develop and provide educational materials for peer reviewers, volunteers and program stakeholders, and has recently revised the mission for the CAATE Annual Accreditation Conference. Eberman and the Committee will also partner with other CAATE committees to develop multimedia resources to help programs better understand the intent behind specific standards and evidence that can support compliance and common challenges. She is hopeful that this collective work will help support the culture of assistance the CAATE strives to convey.
Additionally, Eberman and the Committee are working to develop new educational tools for stakeholders. While still in the developmental stage, the tools will likely include videos and a centralized location for resources.
“These resources are likely to include short videos for each standard, as well as collecting previously made resources, like webinars and accreditation conference sessions, all in one centralized location for stakeholders to use to get a brief appreciation for the intent of each standard,” says Eberman. “We want folks to be successful and these resources propagate the message of transparency we have continued to hear from CAATE leadership.”
Looking Ahead
In looking ahead at the future of athletic training, Eberman hopes to see growth in support and promotion for post-professional education, as she believes it can better prepare athletic trainers at the professional level and allow for high-quality clinical immersion experiences.
She is also excited to see the profession change and grow in the coming years thanks to the integration of the most recent set of standards into programs — something she believes will elevate the athletic training profession.
Of course, the integration of the recent standards isn’t the only thing Eberman hopes to see move the profession forward. While acknowledging that the degree transition has impacted more learners in athletic training, she finds the proliferation of residency and fellowship training to be incredibly transformative as well.
“Specialty and subspecialty training can help to solidify our role in sports medicine and athletic health care, but also help us reconsider how we traditionally structure athletic health care teams,” says Eberman. “Folks that have the capacity to navigate complex cases working alongside generalists serve our patients better and we need to continue to foster residency and fellowship programs across health care settings.”
Working to make positive changes in the profession for athletic training education has been a highlight in her career, but the most rewarding for Eberman is the work she does with students, particularly with their scholarly endeavors.
“Watching students engage in research, seeing them work through a process and problem-solve through difficult bumps in the road helps them build resilience,” says Eberman. “Beyond that, I love that they have come back for more.”
Reporting Changes to Program Data and Outcomes Information
The CAATE is implementing reporting changes that will impact how student achievement and performance data (programmatic outcomes) must be shared with the public. These changes will allow the public to compare performance and student achievement between programs in an identical format, allowing for enhanced transparency and public understanding of achievements.
To assist you in reporting your program’s student achievements and outcomes, the CAATE created a program data and outcomes page for each program that includes a comprehensive, uniform data set that will be auto-populated via our accreditation software, eAccreditation. The data set will include performance and student achievement data in addition to your program’s accreditation history.
We are requiring all programs to update their athletic training program’s website with the CAATE provided data by July 31, 2022. Additionally, all programs must provide the updated reporting of programmatic outcomes within the 2022 Annual Report due on Oct. 1.
Next Steps for Program Directors
- Watch the CAATE instructional video for insights on this change and how to access your program’s program data and outcomes link.
- Reference our FAQ page to better understand the reporting changes, calculations and student retention rate.
- Access your program’s unique program data and outcomes link, which houses all of your data, via eAccreditation.
- Display the link on your athletic training program’s website, either on the homepage or “one-click” from the program’s homepage by July 31. 2022.
Why Is the CAATE Making Reporting Changes?
The reporting changes are in response to requirements set forth by the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA), the CAATE’s nongovernmental accreditor. The CHEA is requiring the Commission to provide additional details about our public reporting of accreditation actions, and performance and student achievement. The Commission supports these efforts to promote public transparency.
Read more about CHEA’s requirements for the Commission.
Please reach out the CAATE staff via support@caate.net if you have any questions or issues accessing your program’s data.
Athletic Training Centralized Application Services (ATCAS): Fee Waiver Opportunities for 2021-2022 Application Cycle
ATCAS is the centralized application service for professional athletic training programs brought to you through a partnership between the CAATE and Liaison International, the leading provider of higher education admissions management and enrollment marketing solutions. ATCAS is available at no cost to programs and offers programs and admissions offices reporting capabilities and real-time metrics that help facilitate better admissions decisions and dramatically improve the effectiveness of their application and enrollment process. Through ACTAS’s integrated administrative services, schools also have the ability to analyze their applicant pool, better understand their applicant pipeline, forecast and benchmark from cycle to cycle, and compare an individual program to specified or national cohorts.
ATCAS continues to add programs each year with over 170 athletic training programs now utilizing their services, including 50+ new programs that have joined in the past two cycles and over 80% of accredited professional master’s programs. Currently, for the 2021-2022 cycle (ending June 1), ATCAS is trending to have the greatest number of applicants submitted to date and the greatest average of applications submitted per applicant at 2.2, which indicates applicants are applying to more programs.
The CAATE first introduced income-based fee waivers with the 2020-2021 application cycle and continues its commitment to this program. The fee waiver program has been implemented to reduce the financial burden of the application process for selected individuals, which has been shown to encourage applications from those who may find the initial application process to be financially challenging. The program is based on financial need and the determination of low-income guidelines are based on 100% of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services poverty guidelines. These guidelines are the same as those used for the Health Resources and Services Administration’s Scholarships for Disadvantaged Students (SDS) and Loans for Disadvantages Students (LDS) programs. The fee waiver program will apply only to the first designation by an applicant. To date, the CAATE has funded 100% of fee waivers submitted through ATCAS. The CAATE remains committed to this program, fully funding 100% of fee waivers submitted through ATCAS to date, and encourages programs to direct interested applicants to the fee waiver information through ATCAS.
Resources
Access the on-demand webinar and view this brochure to learn how ATCAS can help you maximize your applicant pool and achieve your enrollment goals.
Contact Us
For more information on how your program can participate in ATCAS, click here and contact Ann Donnelly, ATCAS account manager, at adonnelly@liaisonedu.com or (617) 612-2064.
Have questions? Contact the CAATE office at support@caate.net or (512) 733-9700.
View 2021 Residency and Fellowship Workshop Session Recordings
Session recordings from our 2021 Residency and Fellowship Workshop are available on the CAATE website. Each session includes insights from athletic training educators and dynamic discussions that address a wide range of attendee questions.
Recorded sessions include:
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- Enhancing Your Framework
- The Framework – Group Discussion
- Strategic Planning and Innovation
- Residency/Fellowship Foundations and Adopting the 2022 Standards
- Residency/Fellowship Foundations – Group Discussion
Upcoming Dates
Oct. 7-8 - CAATE Annual Accreditation Conference