Interprofessional Education Activities

Today, a very real and substantial gap exists between health and human services education and health care delivery in the United States. One of the goals of the Waldron College of Health and Human Services is to bridge this gap by creating a deeply connected, integrated learning environment for our students to connect their education to the care they will provide as future professionals, particularly as it relates to engagement in interprofessional practice. One of the primary initiatives of Waldron College is, therefore, to foster the development of innovative educational and practice models of team-based, collaborative care by both our faculty and our students to ensure best practices in the health and human services arenas. As such, we offer trainings and educational opportunities, provide innovative teaching models, and engage in evidence-based practices to help support emerging priorities in healthcare and human services for our faculty, students, and community partners.

The Waldron College of Health and Human Services has implemented an array of interprofessional learning, co-curricular and extracurricular opportunities across the units, which demonstrate the commitment of our leadership to interprofessional education and practice. Examples of our interprofessional initiatives include:

  • The annual Waldron College Interprofessional Symposium and Expo has successfully brought together the departments and schools from within the college and across the university, as well as partners throughout the surrounding communities, to address the collaborative networks that now enhance student learning and provide improvements in community health and human services across the Commonwealth of Virginia.
  • The Interprofessional Education and Practice Symposium was created to provide an annual interprofessional learning opportunity for our students to better understand their role and the roles of others, and acquire the skills to interact with other disciplines for the benefit of a client. These skills include respectful communication, negotiation, advocacy, and leadership. Each year, the Interprofessional Education and Practice Symposium has been approved as a Radford University Scholar-Citizen Initiative, with the aims of fostering critical thinking, making connections between academic knowledge and participation in local and national health and education systems, and problem-solving in the context of contemporary real-world issues.

We invite you to view the two following documents to discover the latest developments, programs and resources in interprofessional education and practice in Waldron College.