The Professional Athletic Training program was recently awarded a grant from the National Athletic Trainers’ Association (NATA) Ethnic Diversity Advisory Committee (EDAC). The grant is for over $4,500 and will be used to recruit diverse students to both the University of South Florida (USF) Athletic Training (AT) program and the profession. The USF Athletic Training program is committed to improving diversity in our program, but also the profession as well and wanted to use this invaluable resource provided by NATA and EDAC to continue our work.

The grant will be used to attend various diverse recruitment events, visit diverse high schools and universities across Florida, and overall improve the presence of our program and profession to these students. The reason for these activities and events it to raise awareness of Athletic Training as a profession and excellent health care career option. The program will then track attendance at events, visits, interest in the program, and ultimately students who apply and are accepted to the Professional Athletic Training program to measure the success of the grant.

Rebecca Lopez, PhD, LAT, ATC – Associate Professor and Assistant Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for the School of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Sciences said, “this grant will allow our program to continue and increase our efforts to recruit, admit, and graduate diverse professional athletic trainers, which in turn will allow the profession to better reflect our population and the patients they treat and work with. Diversity is not only important for our program and profession, but our society and the overall health care system.”

The program has already begun work on the grant to purchase items to promote the profession, identify institutions and events to attend, and have started building connections. The hope is that most of the travel and recruitment will occur in summer and fall 2022.