Two legislative bills that would authorize California State University campuses to offer doctorate degrees in physical therapy and nursing practice are now waiting for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s approval.

Assembly Bill 2382 and Assembly Bill 867 would establish the Doctor of Physical Therapy and Doctor of Nursing Practice programs, respectively, into the CSU.

The bills do not apply toward the University of California system because UC campuses already have the authority to offer doctorate degrees.

Schwarzenegger has until Thursday to either veto the bills, or sign them into law.

PHYSICAL THERAPY BILL AIMS TO MEET WORKFORCE DEMAND

The bill’s author, Assemblyman Bob Blumenfield, D-San Fernando Valley, said AB 2382 aims to meet the demand for licensed physical therapists in California and in the country.

“Employment opportunities are expected to expand by 30 percent over the next five years. The provision is aimed at keeping a CSU clinical doctorate degree affordable for California college students,” he said in an e-mail to The State Hornet.

The state Senate passed AB 2382 with 35-0 votes, and the Assembly passed it with 72-4 votes last month.

According to the bill, by Dec. 31, 2015, physical therapists must have the Doctor of Physical Therapy degree to be licensed practitioners, as enforced by the Commission on Accreditation in Physical Therapy Education.

By 2018, all physical therapy programs in the country must award a doctorate degree for practitioners, Blumenfield said. This means if AB 2382 does not become law, all of CSU’s physical therapy programs would eventually close down.

Blumenfield said the CSU’s four accredited physical therapy programs in Sacramento, Long Beach, Fresno and Northridge graduate 36 percent of the students entering the profession with a master’s degree.

“The graduates from the public programs represent a third of the graduates from physical therapy programs across the state,” said Susan McGinty, director and chair of the department of physical therapy. “So, closing the doors for these four physical therapist programs would have a huge impact on the workforce in the state of California.”

But because CSU campuses do not have the authority to offer the doctorate degree, CSU students who graduated with a master’s degree in physical therapy will have to transfer to a UC campus or private university to get the schooling to obtain their license.

For some graduates it will not be a possibility, McGinty said.

Although the doctorate degree is already available in the UC, it costs as much as the average private university, which is about $87,000, McGinty said.

“We don’t think it’s appropriate to be charging that kind of money for access to the profession,” McGinty said. “We feel very strongly that we want to keep the doors open for folks from middle- and lower-income families who could not afford the high cost of the private programs without the major debt that they would have to carry.”

As opposed to educational doctorates like the Doctor of Philosophy degree, the Doctor of Physical Therapy degree is specifically designed for clinical work, McGinty said.

“It’s very different than a degree that would prepare someone to teach,” McGinty said. “They don’t require a dissertation, and are not designed for research and academic life. They are designed to prepare high-quality competent practitioners and hands-on therapists.”

According to the bill, the CSU will not be allowed to lower enrollment or education quality of undergraduate students to help fund the Doctor of Physical Therapy program.

Student fees will provide all the revenue needed to support the program, McGinty said.

Even though the CSU’s doctorate degree would cost students more compared with other degrees in the system, it will be about half the cost of an equivalent program in a private institution, essentially saving CSU students money in the long run, McGinty said.

NURSING BILL AIMS TO TRAIN MORE FACULTY

AB 867, authored by Assemblyman Pedro Nava, D-Santa Barbara, would establish the Doctor of Nursing Practice degree designed to address California’s ever-increasing nursing shortage by providing doctorate degrees to nursing professors.

The bill cited the governor’s California Nurse Education Initiative Annual Report from September 2006, which projected a shortage of 47,600 and 116,600 registered nurses by 2010 and 2020, respectively.

The state Senate passed the bill with 31-1 votes and the Assembly passed it with 76-0 votes last month.

“Nursing programs across California will now be able to expand appropriately to meet the enrollment demand in nursing education programs,” Nava said in a press release last month. “Our state’s higher education system cannot currently meet our health care workforce needs.”

In 2006, the American Association of Colleges of Nursing reported nearly 41,000 qualified applicants were denied of enrollment in nursing programs because of lack of faculty. Moreover, a recent survey conducted by the association showed that 55 percent of the nursing schools surveyed require professors to have a doctorate degree.

“Many of our nursing educational systems are losing younger faculty to alternative roles outside of academia due to salary and workload issues,” said Carolyn Goetze, assistant professor in Sac State’s division of nursing.

Some students just do not think it is worth the time, effort, or money to obtain a doctorate degree from a private school to teach or lead nurses, she said.

If the bill signed into law, three CSU campuses will offer 90 Doctor of Nursing Practice degrees. Sac State may not be one of the chosen campuses to award the degree. Nava could not be reached for comments as to how the campuses will be chosen.

“This is a very positive step to assist in addressing what potentially can be an extremely severe shortage of nursing faculty in our immediate future,” Goetze said. “We are in support of this measure and would very much like to be the campus of choice for this degree. We have several faculty within the division of nursing who are poised to teach in this program should it become a reality.”

Similar to the physical therapy variation, the bill requires the CSU to finance the program without hindering any undergraduate programs or using any additional state funds.

“AB 867 will ensure nursing programs have the faculty needed to meet the raising demand of registered nurses in the state,” co-author Assemblyman Juan Arambula, I-Fresno, said in a press re

DOCTORATE CULTURE CHALLENGES STUDENTS

The two bills, if signed into law, would benefit both the students and the Sacramento community by developing a “doctoral culture” that challenges students to think beyond what they know, said Carlos Nevarez, program director of Sac State’s Doctorate in Educational Leadership Program.

“It challenges them to think about newness creating new models, new practices, new behaviors&-that will solve arising problems,” Nevarez said. “Doctoral culture really focuses on scholarship and developing advanced analytical skills and dispositions for excellence.”

The Doctorate in Educational Leadership, designed to train students to run institutions as school principals, superintendents and administrators, is Sac State’s only doctorate degree.

In 2005, the CSU was authorized through Senate Bill 724 to begin awarding the degree; Sac State has been offering it since 2007.

Nevarez said the program ensures that its students are broadly analytical and have the knowledge base to approach complex situations because of the many variables that should be considered in the profession.

“Our students need a multi-structural approach to deal with these issues,” Nevarez said. “A leader in education needs to look from multiple lenses to find a solution.”

Nevarez said students in the program are well-balanced between both the academic and practical levels of educational leadership.

“On a semester basis we have a lecture series where we bring in both renowned scholars and professionals in the workforce to talk about issues of leadership and policy,” Nevarez said. “We work with them and the Sac State Library to ensure that our students have sophisticated databases of full-blown dissertations that are invaluable as templates and guides toward achieving their degree.”

He said the program is spearheading the concept of a doctoral culture around the campus. He said the CSU community’s biases toward building a workforce has made it lose appreciation for academics and the two new doctorate degrees provide a chance to rekindle it.

Micah Stevenson can be reached at [email protected].