Chair's Message
Thank you for your interest in the Department of Occupational Therapy, also known as the historic Boston School of Occupational Therapy (BSOT) at Tufts University. BSOT was founded in 1918 at the request of the surgeon general of the United States Army. In 1945, it became affiliated with Tufts University.
The Department is part of Tufts Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, situated in the dynamic, culturally rich community of Greater Boston on our beautiful Medford campus. We are a top-ranked graduate program that provides an impressive array of resources and opportunities for learning, practice and research. We offer entry-level and post-professional masters and doctoral degree programs as well as advanced certificate programs.
Students receive a comprehensive and consistently updated educational experience to be able to collaborate with diverse client, community, and professional groups and address complex, rapidly changing healthcare and societal needs. As part of the Graduate School, we are ideally positioned to educate future professionals, researchers and leaders who can actively participate in and advance an interdisciplinary and inter-professional approach to scholarship and practice focused on improving health and quality of life of people with or at risk of [dis]abilities across the lifespan. We are housed in the Collaborative Learning and Innovation Complex where interdisciplinary students and faculty collaborate with each other and with diverse community partners to find and implement innovate solutions further ensuring the success of our important work.
We continue to have a strong success rate for our first-time test takers on the National Board for Certification in Occupational Therapy (NBCOT) examination in the past three years. The statistics can be found on our Program Accreditation page. Our graduates succeed in occupational therapy and related careers, are educators, scholars, and leaders in the field, and maintain strong links with their alma mater.
I am proud of our tradition of excellence in teaching, scholarship and community service. Occupational therapists have learned from research and practice that participation in meaningful daily life activities and routines ("occupations") is strongly linked to health and well-being across the lifespan. Occupational therapists support clients' participation in home, school and community life. We address a range of factors that might affect participation, such as clients’ health conditions, abilities, interests and goals; family and community needs; and enabling and disabling features of the physical and social environment.
Our faculty are excellent educators, mentors and renowned leaders, scholars and researchers, locally, nationally and internationally. Faculty and staff are accessible to and supportive of students' learning needs and career interests and are devoted to maintaining a diverse, inclusive and culturally aware learning atmosphere. Additionally, our students come from varied locations across the USA and world and have access to a wide range of programs, courses, resources, and events held in the department, graduate school, university and the wider community to address their specific needs and interests.
We welcome your inquiries about our program and hope to welcome you to Tufts and the field of occupational therapy.
