A BEACON TO THE REGION

Educating and serving with a higher purpose, MSJ faculty and students put passion into action, sharing their light to help build a better world.

By Zachary Petit

For one preschooler at Holy Family School, it started with milk.

Principal Katie Puthoff says English is a second language for 70 to 75 percent of her Cincinnati, Ohio, school’s 225 students, and that figure likely skews higher when looking at preschool classes alone. But this particular student wasn’t speaking much of his native language at school—and he wasn’t speaking any English at all. Soon, he would be in kindergarten, where he would be starting at a disadvantage, behind the rest of the class.

The education system has long needed tools to help get all students on a level playing field, so they can truly thrive and share the same opportunities for success when they reach kindergarten. And that’s exactly why Amy Murdoch, Ph.D., assistant dean of Reading Science, created the Project Ready! curriculum: to get students ready. It launched within Holy Family in 2019, and it didn’t take long for its impact to be felt.

“We piloted this program and started seeing such amazing results as our students were leaving preschool, and watched their language skills really flourish,” Puthoff says. “The parents were really pleased. The teachers were really pleased. And, of course, the students loved what they were learning.”

Students excitedly told Puthoff about caterpillars, chrysalises, and butterflies— using those words. They were truly absorbing the concepts and vocabulary placed before them, and, well, “that was something that we just had never seen before,” Puthoff says.

Moreover, for one little boy, it meant that he no longer had to say “moo” to get his milk at lunchtime. Now, he asked for it directly.

The Mount’s mission has long coupled an interdisciplinary liberal arts education with social responsibility, and faculty and students involved with two brand-new hubs—the Center for Reading Science and the Pro Bono Physical Therapy Clinic—are sharing the flames of their curiosity and passion to light a beacon for the community like never before.

THE PROJECT READY! REVOLUTION

Amanda Rice working with a student at Holy Family.

The Mount has long been a prominent champion of the science of reading, which harnesses proven research-based methods to teach a vital skill. The thing is, “we don’t want to be unique,” Murdoch says. “We want every university to prepare their teachers in the science of reading, because that’s one of the key ways we’re really going to change reading outcomes for children.”

To that end, Murdoch and her team have launched the Stronger Together: Alliance for Reading Science in Higher Education (STARS-HE) for professionals to collaborate across institutions, and they hosted a sold-out Reading Science Summit this past summer—which served as a soft launch for the Mount’s Center for Reading Science.

Here, Murdoch and her colleagues work to support local and national educators, and preside over Project Ready!, which has been Murdoch’s passion for years. She began the work while doing her dissertation years ago, and formally launched the project during her sabbatical in 2019, alongside Project Ready! Project Manager/Early Learning Specialist Rosie Warburg ’12. Dean of Education Laura Saylor, Ph.D., was excited when Murdoch decided to focus on the initiative and was touched by her commitment to young children. Murdoch’s goal is to provide an open-source resource for anyone who wanted to use it, so it could have the widest possible reach and fewer barriers to entry, especially for schools that lack the budget to purchase curricula.

“This is just not typical,” Saylor says. “Her vision of impacting that kind of change and not looking for any big monetary payment, but just wanting to do the right thing to make the world a better place, permeates her program, permeates her Center, and it permeates all of us who get to work with her. It really is phenomenal.”

For Murdoch, the vexing thing is that reading science isn’t new—it’s established, and has been for some time. In other words: We know how to teach kids to read, yet there are still so many students who are not given the same chance at success.

“We have really abysmal national data around reading, really for all kids, but especially for children who are living in poverty and for children who are Black and Brown,” Murdoch says.

Vanessa Julca reading to students at Holy Family.

Warburg says the program consists of roughly 12 units, and the aim is to develop two years of programming because many children attend preschool for that duration. Science and social studies are the basis for the main topics of the curriculum, with a focus on imparting broad academic knowledge and vocabulary. Teachers can cover about one unit per month, and each has an overarching theme, such as kindness. There is also group work focused on oral language, and a critical alphabet component where students learn letter names and sounds, serving as building blocks and preludes to words and sentences.

“We’re not expecting children to come out of preschool reading because that’s not appropriate, but we’re putting all of those skills in place so that when it is appropriate, they have all of that background knowledge and can really take off,” Warburg says.

The team piloted the program at Holy Family, shaping and adjusting it in real time so that it would be achievable by an extremely busy preschool teacher. Now in Phase 2, Murdoch and her team are working with 11 classrooms across a variety of schools.

Principal Puthoff says it has become a staple at her institution, and she can’t imagine her preschool without it.

“I can’t say enough about the Project Ready! team in general,” she says. “I think if we were trying to implement any project of this size without a great team, it wouldn’t work. The people that put this curriculum together and are working with our teachers truly make all the difference. They believe so much in what they’re doing that it’s hard to not have that excitement spread.”

As for highs of the program, one of Murdoch’s favorite stories involves a group of students who came to a Project Ready! school from a privileged high school to help out in the classroom. One of the high schoolers informed a student that Mexico is in South America—and the preschooler pointed out that, actually, it is in North America.

Jasmine Luna Villa helping a student with an art project.

“I thought, how powerful that this little 4-year-old was correcting a high schooler,” Murdoch recalls.

For Warburg, one of her favorite moments came when a parent asked if her child could keep a book from the astronomy unit, because he loved it so much that he would read it to himself every night and fall asleep with it.

There’s also a broader impact. Murdoch says that at the end of every year, her team solicits feedback from teachers. One reply from an educator: it redefined how her students thought about the future, and what they want to be when they grow up.

Before the curriculum, Murdoch says this particular educator said the students wanted to be a mommy or a daddy or a garbage truck driver or a fireman, which are all good things. Now they’re talking about wanting to be an astronaut or an engineer or Jane Goodall.

Murdoch explains, “Those are things we’re exposing them to in our program. That’s really what it’s about. We want to make sure their worlds are big because they deserve all the options that every kid gets. That’s really the heart of why we did this, is making sure kids have lots of options.”

It may start with milk, but it can lead to brilliant places, indeed.

A GAME-CHANGING CLINIC FOR THE UNDERINSURED

Ashley Klosterman works with a client at the Pro Bono PT Clinic while Makenzie Meyer (left) and Dylon Neff (right) observe.

Photo by Mark Byron.

On an evening brimming with energy in mid-September, the Mount’s Pro Bono Physical Therapy (PT) Clinic opened its doors for the first time… but not everything went according to plan.

The students running the clinic hit some snags with the medical records process. As it turns out, though, that was probably ideal—because things don’t go perfectly in the real world. Forget simulations. This is true on-the-job training with real patients and real scenarios.

“Students are involved in the logistics, the day-to-day, the leadership, and they get an opportunity to really experience what it’s like,” Dean of Health Sciences Darla Vale, Ph.D., says. “Just dealing with reality is valuable exposure that very few programs have.”

Like the Center for Reading Science, the Pro Bono PT Clinic is a brand-new initiative that takes the Mount’s progressive learning models and brings them into the community to make true impact, while benefiting students in the process. And it’s an innovation that’s years in the making.

“It’s been a 20-year odyssey,” Associate Professor Karen Holtgrefe says.

Alan Quisido helps a new Pro Bono PT Clinic client while Nate Schmeusser observes. JJ Fischer takes detailed notes.

Photo by Mark Byron.

Over the years Holtgrefe and others have pursued various strategies to try to make it happen—but with the Mount’s current leadership and strategic vision of serving as a beacon to the region, the stars aligned and the team got to work at their new space on Neeb Road.

The location is situated directly across the street from the Delhi Fire Department, where an in-house social worker has been helping to recruit patients and offering the team insights, such as how the number of runs the department has had to make for falls or to assist people in getting up, skyrocketed during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Moreover, right down the street is an apartment building for low-income seniors. With falls and other incidents, what happens to patients after they’re back from the hospital?

The DPT crew says the Good Samaritan Free Health Center in Price Hill does a fantastic job of meeting the needs of the uninsured. But when it comes to the underinsured, there is a true gap in support—and that’s where the clinic can really make an impact.

“The Pro Bono PT Clinic itself is really there because our current healthcare reimbursement and finance [system] is just simply broken,” DPT Chair and Professor Lisa Dehner, Ph.D., says. “It’s not for us to fix today, but what we know is that there are folks that are very underinsured with respect to therapy. They might be able to get their immediate medical needs met, which obviously is a first priority, but as far as their ability to live their life well—where physical therapists might come in—a lot of times they’re very underinsured.”

The DPT department has been working to spread the word about the clinic far and wide. They’ve sent out flyers. They’ve gotten it in the newsletter of a fitness center. They attended the Delhi Fire Department Open House and talked to more than 200 people about the clinic. They’ve sent word to local PT clinics, alumni, social media, and even MSJ students. Anyone with any injury, provided they can leave their home, is eligible for care. “All are welcome,” Dehner says. The team envisions the clinic serving the community yearround, in 10-week rotations. Students work a week of shifts from 6–8 p.m. on Tuesdays and 9–11 a.m. on Saturdays, then alternate with their colleagues, returning five weeks later to follow up with patients for another week. Every student thus gets four shifts at the clinic.

Dehner says the schedule provides a critical challenge to students: They’re going to see a patient twice, and then they won’t see them for another five weeks. How does that change their approach to the therapy, and how do they empower patients to work on their challenges solo in the meantime?

Ultimately, it’s the students who are in charge. And two of those are second-year DPT student and Pro Bono Clinic director Maegan McCarthy and her first-year co-director, Morgan Rouff.

“I chose PT because I was a competitive gymnast growing up, and due to all my injuries, I was not a stranger to the physical therapy clinic,” McCarthy says. “Through my interactions with my therapists, I grew to love the idea of helping others get back to activities that they enjoyed like my therapists did for me. From there it really just became my life’s goal to become a PT.”

Stephanie Peter uses lessons learned at the Mount to assist a client.

Photo by Mark Byron.

Already, Holtgrefe has witnessed the students solving problems in real time, in one case seamlessly dividing and sharing responsibilities based on who had done inpatient and outpatient work, and taking the documentation issues that arose in stride. “I thought it was brilliant,” Holtgrefe says.

McCarthy says she has been impressed with her classmates’ flexibility, and the ways in which they’re integrating the skills they have picked up in the program while showing great professionalism with patients. Rouff, meanwhile, loves the collaborative vibe of the Clinic. “Both the students and patients have the ability to benefit, and it is a great space for lots of teamwork and leadership to occur,” she says. “It has been successful in the short time that it has been open, and I think we have so much more to share within our community.”

Like the Center for Reading Science, the sky’s the limit when it comes to the possibilities of the program—and growth is the goal.

In the future, the team hopes to include other students in the School of Health Sciences, such as those in the new Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences Program and the established Physician Assistant Studies Program. Their ultimate aspiration is to have a Health Sciences building with a comprehensive clinic, and to connect the community with all of the Mount’s programs, offering support to anyone regardless of whether they’re seeking physical therapy, speech therapy, to go from couch to 5K, or any ground in between.

Such an offering shouldn’t just be the domain of schools that have a hospital attached, Dehner says, and this is how a private school with a strong Health Sciences Program can really support the community. Vale concurs. “I was a clinician,” she adds. “I’m a nurse. I was a critical care nurse for many, many years… but in education, you can have almost an exponential impact.”

In addition to the new Pro Bono Clinic, the DPT Program also has a fresh mission statement:

Engaging students in a personalized and collaborative learning environment that empowers them to become physical therapists who have a commitment to lifelong learning, a passion for serving others, and a dedication to interprofessional practice that inspires them to optimize the health and well-being of the community.

As any Pro Bono PT Clinic patient would likely attest: That beacon is indisputably lit, and they’re well on their way.

MSJ STUDENT-RUN PRO BONO PT CLINIC is located at 672 Neeb Road, Cincinnati, Ohio 45233 513-244-4282

For the most up-to-date business hours, or to schedule an appointment, visit www.msj.edu/pt-clinic.