This semester, the first 19 students of WSU’s newly initiated Bachelor of Science in Occupational Therapy Assistant program will have a brand new building to work in — the Occupational Therapy Pathways Building.

On Monday, an open house gave the public its first glimpse of the new building.

Robyn Thompson, assistant professor and program director for WSU’s Occupational Therapy Assistant program, told the Standard-Examiner that the Pathways Building is a huge addition to the university.

“We’re just very fortunate to have the Pathways Building,” she said. “The program was able to get its start with the generous donations from the Larry H. & Gail Miller Family Foundation and Weber State already had this land and property, from what I understand, and so it was determined once the money was donated that the University would use this property as the building space.”

Rob Nielsen, Standard-Examiner

She said the original intent had been to use one of the houses that was already on the property as the Pathways Building.

“At first, they looked at remodeling the existing home, but because the home was so old and unsafe, it was decided to tear down the building and to rebuild,” she said. “And we were able to fortunately work with a great architectural firm and our building team from Weber State University and really design a space that could be functional and a nice teaching space and a lab space and a clinic space. We’re really fortunate to be able to design the space we needed from the very beginning.”

According to a press release about the new structure, “the Occupational Therapy Pathways Building features simulated hospital, clinic, and home environments designed to prepare students for the complex environments they’ll encounter in professional practice.”

Thompson said the Occupational Therapy Assistant program is just getting its start at Weber State and had room for 24 students this year, filling 19 of those spaces.

“I think we’re really fortunate to be a part of Weber State that already has a very well-established health professions program,” she said. “We’ve had support along the way. We have people that understand the curriculum process, the accreditation process, the recruiting process and so really, the teams were already in place. We just had to open up more space for occupational therapy, which we’ve been very well supported at Weber State.”

She said the new building is the perfect place to start out.

“It turned out really beautiful and really functional,” she said. “So far it has worked out very well to be able to have classrooms and lab space and lots of different areas to meet. For example, all of our tables and chairs fold and nest into each other so we can move the classroom out and have a lab or a clinic space and then move the furniture back in, so it has worked out really well.”

In the coming weeks, Thompson said the program will start to connect to the community in a big way.

“Starting this fall and continuing forward, we’re having a community clinic where we will be providing free occupational therapy services to the community,” she said. “And then we’re also partnering with different community partners like Seager Memorial Clinic to provide free occupational therapy as a walk-in service on Monday afternoons. We’re also going to be partnering with other partners like Family Promise and CAPES!, which is a program that works with children and adolescents with developmental disabilities.”

She said that the community at large has been very supportive of the emerging OTA program.

“One of the great things has just been our community has been so receptive to partnering in providing learning opportunities for our students, which is, in my mind, a win-win situation because our students will be learning, but then also the community will be benefiting from the students providing occupational therapy services at no cost to the community,” she said.