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Ithaca College’s new master of science in physician assistant (PA) studies program is a 27-month MS degree designed to attract college graduates pursuing health care careers and who come from undergraduate pre-health profession programs such as health sciences, exercise science, athletic training, biology, chemistry, biochemistry, and psychology. The inaugural cohort is 30 learners.

A PA is a medical professional who diagnoses illness, develops and manages treatment plans, prescribes medications, and often serves as a patient’s principal health care provider in collaboration with a physician. It’s one of the fastest growing professions, with the number of jobs expected to increase 31% between 2019 and 2029, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and it ranks among the best jobs of 2021, according to U.S. News & World Report. 

“Because there’s such a great need for providers in this region, a way to get people to relocate here is to have the program in this region and for them to experience it and fall in love with it, and then stay,” said Susan Salahshor, PhD, PA-C, DFAAPA, director of the PA program. 

The program’s focus areas will include rural medicine, family medicine, behavioral and mental health care, population and community health, and interprofessional education and practice. 

“We wanted to focus on rural, behavioral, and mental health and really try to serve the community in which we live,” said Salahshor. “Every community assessment plan shows we need more health care providers to work in behavioral and mental health. We wanted to do something where we’re building the future leaders in the PA profession.”

The program has created its own diversity statement, which establishes a focus on an equity framework that seeks to be representative of all people, including those impacted by systemic disadvantages and marginalization. Faculty and staff meet monthly to discuss next steps for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts and have completed all of the Harvard implicit bias training modules.

“The PA program faculty and staff have been purposeful in understanding diversity, equity, and inclusion,” said Salahshor. “Our final admissions committee has a staff or faculty member outside the program who represents the DEI community, to ensure we address our implicit bias during this critical process for applicants.”

“When I first interviewed with the IC PA program, I instantly felt like I was home,” said Brittny Dawkins ’23. “This program was founded on the principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion and places a strong emphasis on servicing quality health care to underserved communities and providing a well-rounded academic curriculum, allowing us to become leaders and change agents within the communities we will practice medicine in soon.”

The PA program’s supplemental instructional site, located on the downtown Ithaca Commons, held a ribbon-cutting ceremony with the City of Ithaca in October 2021. This site will bring PA students and faculty to the center of the community that they will help serve. Salahshor said it is necessary for the program to have space where students can practice their clinical skills. The new space includes a clinical learning center and a simulation center with advanced technology that provides opportunities for students to get hands-on practice and for faculty to observe students engaged in practice. Additionally, the students will have access to the human anatomy lab on Ithaca College’s main campus.

Mahbuba Akter ’23 feels that the PA program will help her not only become a knowledgeable PA but also a compassionate and kind PA as well.

“Not to be biased, but I love everything about this program,” said Akter. “However, my two favorite aspects are being part of a diverse class and our faculty and staff. I have many friends in PA programs who are just seen as students by faculty and staff, whereas our faculty and staff care for our mental health and know us as individuals. Imposter syndrome is real in medicine, and the faculty always make us feel like we belong here, even on our hard days.”

“Ithaca College and Cayuga Health are mutually committed to training practitioners who are skilled at delivering health care to rural populations and to enhancing the health care services available in our community and surrounding areas,” said Stallone. “The PA program builds on past successes of other collaborative clinical programs between Cayuga Health and Ithaca College, like physical therapy and sports medicine.”

The program will establish relationships with community colleges offering degrees that include training in medical fields, such as paramedic and certified nursing assistant; and with the New York BOCES New Visions program, which offers high school students opportunities to explore health and medical sciences–related careers. There will also be a focus on diversity and inclusion when establishing pathways with high schools.

“We want to make sure that our learners are striving for excellence,” said Salahshor. “Everybody strives for excellence, but there is a way you can teach people excellence: It’s in everything they do. It’s in attention to detail.” 

College students across the country have been calling on their institutions to diversify the curriculum and include more varied perspectives and experiences, especially those from marginalized communities. Ithaca College’s major in race, power, and resistance, housed within IC’s Center for the Study of Culture, Race, and Ethnicity (CSCRE), is designed to do just that.

“This major is important because it stresses the idea that race is not an add on,” said Belisa Gonzalez, director of the CSCRE and associate professor in the Department of Sociology. “Racial analysis is not an afterthought. Students of color want to see themselves reflected in the curriculum, see themselves reflected in the faculty, and have their experiences and histories validated.” 

Gonzalez acknowledges that recent attention has been given to racial disparities and the lack of racial justice–oriented curriculum across higher education.

“The difference between what we’re offering and what traditional disciplines offer is that we are starting from a place of centering minoritized voices and experiences, instead of trying to retrofit a discipline to add those voices,” said Gonzalez. “Part of that is acknowledging that there are consequences attached to not understanding how systems of oppression work and how they relate to race. Racism is sophisticated, and it is always changing.” 

Gonzalez said that the major offers opportunities for experiential learning and myriad opportunities to incorporate topical and timely events into the course material. 

“There’s never any shortage of examples going on in the world to draw connections to,” said Gonzalez. “There’s so many opportunities to apply what we’re learning, and that’s something that we really value.” 

Paula Ioanide, professor in the CSCRE, said students in the major will have opportunities to gain knowledge and experience through hands-on learning as the major requires students to take a methods course to learn about different approaches to studying race and ethnicity. 

“We want them to understand that this is how you would apply your knowledge if you became a researcher or a policymaker or a producer, so they can really start seeing through this lens that you adopt and then you can practice it in many ways,” Ioanide added. 

Kathrynn Meuser ’25, a theatre studies and race, power, and resistance major, feels like a lot of history is left out when learning in high school, and she wanted to take as many courses as possible that would cover histories and cultures that aren’t always talked about.

“I know this field is becoming a lot more popular because, as we progress, issues of race became a lot more relevant in a lot of fields where people are realizing that things aren’t as equitable or equal as they thought,” said Meuser.

To better serve the discipline of screen cultures and provide students with additional avenues for exploration, the School of Humanities and Sciences and the Roy H. Park School of Communications are together offering screen cultures as an interdisciplinary major that draws on faculty from a variety of departments.

Nick Williams ’25 is a screen cultures major who has a deep love of film. He describes the major as a combination of film studies and sociology.

“I think the name stuck with me: screen cultures as opposed to screen studies or film studies itself,” said Williams. “It’s so broad and inclusive of a lot of the aspects of societal trends and not just the impact art has on culture but that culture has on art.”

Williams admits to still learning about this new major because it is so new but that he is really enjoying it and that he is excited to see the program grow.

“We explore different people, different identities, different stories and how those stories are told,” said Williams. “What will the audience’s reaction or reception be, and what it does to a culture as important works are produced, and collectively what a national cinema does for people. I really love it; it’s so enchanting.”

With a large, international, multicultural, interdisciplinary, flexible, and innovative curriculum, the major is being offered to align with the international academic discipline of screen cultures.  

Professor Michael Richardson, who also serves as the chair of the world languages, literatures, and cultures department, is the inaugural director of the program. Richardson sees this joint major as a real opportunity for the college. He collaborated with Charles A. Dana professor of screen studies Patricia Zimmermann and associate professor of screen studies Andrew Utterson to create the degree, a unique offering for students.

“It feels great to all of us to have something hopeful that is a new structure that students can explore and perhaps achieve their goals more elegantly,” said Zimmermann. “It’s also so powerful for the professors because it creates an enormous combustion across this incredibly vibrant, intellectual community.”

Zimmermann believes the new major will provide students with a robust, dynamic set of skills.

“This degree provides students with the two most important skills you need if you want to be in any form of media, which are analytical reading skills (of both books and media forms) and deductive evidence-based writing,” she said. “If you can do those two very well and with rigor and insight, you can adapt to anything. I do think it will position students to enter into whatever field they choose.”

“I think this major has a lot of doors open for exploration,” said Williams. “I think there are a lot of different possibilities for students to forge their own path and really take this in any direction.”

Ithaca College has added a new interdisciplinary major titled women’s, gender, and sexuality studies (WGSS), offering students a flexible curriculum to explore different areas of interest through the lens of gender, sexuality and feminism. The major is intended to help students to understand the world around them as well as their own identities, with the aid of an intersectional framework.