Students will begin working on program requirements as a freshman and complete the UB Curriculum and requirements and occupational therapy prerequisites in preparation for the professional sequence of the program. Students must complete 70 volunteer/observation hours in a U.S. based occupational therapy setting that provides direct patient care. Volunteer forms must be submitted by January 15.
All students must apply to the professional sequence of the program through Graduate School Application Manager by January 6; prior to the summer they expect to begin the professional component of program. That includes those students who are re-applying to the program.
Students must complete the prerequisite and the UB Curriculum requirements. Students may not take prerequisite courses more than twice and may not repeat more than two prerequisite courses.
You can learn more about the pre-professional program through the OT Pre-major HandbookDownload pdf(553 KB).
The undergraduate portion of the professional program begins in the summer semester of your third year; it continues through the fall and spring semesters of your third year and it concludes at the end of the summer semester of your fourth year. These semesters provide structured learning experiences that integrate theory, research and evidence-based practice, while developing your clinical and professional skills.
Following the successful completion of the undergraduate portion of the program, with a minimum 2.8 program GPA, you will progress to the graduate portion of the program. Students begin the graduate portion of the Occupational Therapy program in the fall semester of their fourth year.
A minimum GPA of 3.0 or higher is required for all graduate semesters.
Coursework in the fall semester of your fourth year will focus on occupational therapy practice skills.
During the spring semesters of your fourth and fifth years, you will register for three months of full-time supervised fieldwork experience. Our department maintains more than 150 clinical affiliation agreements throughout the United States. Students will choose their fieldwork sites by a lottery system and in consultation with the Academic Fieldwork Coordinator. Students should expect to leave the Western New York area to fulfill this requirement.
During the fifth year of the program students will complete required courses in administration, education, and underserved populations, and also select graduate courses based on their areas of interest. In addition, students will implement a graduate master's project, a major focus of the fourth and fifth years.
Students should note that the graduate component of the professional portion includes multiple fieldwork experiences and does not follow the standard university academic calendar regarding semester start dates, end dates, final exams, and recess. Specific information about each semester will be provided at the time of course registration.
Students must complete all requirements of the professional component of the program, including fieldwork and the graduate master's project, within a five-year time period.
Students will be awarded the combined BS/MS degree in occupational therapy upon completion of all program and university requirements. If you do not progress to the graduate portion of the program, you may be awarded a bachelor’s degree in occupational science after the completion of additional coursework in related areas.
With the BS/MS combined degree, you will be eligible to take the national certification exam administered by the National Board for Certification in Occupational Therapy (NBCOT).
After successfully completing the exam, you will be a registered occupational therapist (OTR). All states require licensure in order to practice; state licenses are usually based on the results of the NBCOT exam.
A felony arrest or conviction may affect a student’s ability to participate in fieldwork and a graduate’s ability to sit for the NBCOT certification examination or attain state licensure.
All students should review and be familiar with UB’s policy on academic integrity.
Academic integrity is a fundamental university value. Through the honest completion of academic work, students sustain the integrity of the university while facilitating the university's imperative for the transmission of knowledge and culture based upon the generation of new and innovative ideas.
When an instance of suspected or alleged academic dishonesty by a student arises, it shall be resolved according to the following procedures. These procedures assume that many questions of academic dishonesty will be resolved through consultation between the student and the instructor (a process known as consultative resolution, as explained below).
It is recommended that the instructor and student each consult with the Academic Integrity Office and/or the Office of Student Advocacy for guidance and assistance.
Academic dishonesty includes, but is not limited to, the following:
Step 1
If an instructor has reason to believe that a student may have committed an act of academic dishonesty, the instructor shall notify the student suspected of academic dishonesty within 10 academic days1 of discovery of the alleged incident by email to the student’s UBIT address.
If an individual other than the instructor, including other students, faculty, or staff members, has reason to believe that a student may have committed an act of academic dishonesty, the individual shall notify the instructor or the Academic Integrity Office within 10 academic days1 of discovery of the alleged incident.
Once the alleged incident has occurred, the student may not resign from the course without permission of the instructor. If the instructor does not wish to allow the student to resign from the course, the instructor will assign an incomplete grade while the incident is under review.
The instructor will meet and consult with the student within 10 academic days1 of the date of notification. During the consultation, the instructor will inform the student of the alleged incident, and give the student a copy of the Academic Integrity Policy and Procedures. Either party may request department note-takers (staff or faculty, but not teaching assistants) and/or an audio recording device may be used to record the consultation meeting. If the student fails to attend the consultative meeting, the instructor has the authority to reach a decision without consulting the student directly.
Step 2
If, after consultation with the student, the instructor believes the student did not commit an act of academic dishonesty, no sanctions will be imposed and the student will be notified of that finding by official university email. Procedures end.
If, after consultation with the student, the instructor believes the student did commit an act of academic dishonesty, the instructor has the authority to impose one or more of the following sanctions (see list below). Such sanctions will be assigned a “pending” status until the Academic Integrity Office receives notice from the instructor of the sanction and confirms the case at hand is the student’s first academic integrity infraction. If the student has a prior infraction(s), then the sanction may be revised by the Office of Academic Integrity.
1 Instructors may not impose the remediation sanction to a student who previously received an academic integrity sanction(s).
Step 3
The instructor shall notify the student of a decision, any sanction(s) imposed, and the student’s right to appeal that decision, in writing. This decision letter shall be sent to the student via email to the student’s UBIT address, with a copy to the Academic Integrity Office. The student, the department chair, school/college dean’s office, and the Academic Integrity Office must be notified of the instructor’s decision within 10 academic days1 of the date of the consultation meeting. It is the instructor’s responsibility to report the sanction, regardless of severity, to the Academic Integrity Office. A copy of the instructor’s decision letter will be retained in a confidential file in the Academic Integrity Office in perpetuity. The student shall have access to their own confidential file.
Upon request and with the student’s permission academic integrity violations and sanctions may be reported by the Academic Integrity Office to an authorized body.
If the instructor recommends Academic Integrity Office sanctions or university sanction (see consultative resolution, step 2, item 7), Academic Integrity Office procedures are required, before a final decision and sanctions can be enacted. Those procedures shall be initiated within 10 academic days1 of receipt of the instructor’s decision letter.
The student may appeal the instructor’s findings. The student’s request for an appeal must be submitted in writing to the Academic Integrity Office within 10 academic days1 after the instructor has notified the student of his or her decision. In the letter of appeal the student articulates if they are appealing the original judgment of academic dishonesty, the resulting sanction(s)/recommended sanction(s) or both.
Step 1
In cases where the student seeks to appeal an instructor decision, the student and instructor shall each provide a written statement of evidence supporting his or her position, any relevant documentation, and the names of potential witnesses to the Academic Integrity Office (hereafter referred to as the office). The office will review all case materials.
If the office finds no cause to further consider the circumstances of the case, the office will notify the student, via email to the student’s UBIT address, and the instructor within 10 academic days1 of receipt of case materials, that the sanction(s) articulated in the instructor decision letter will be enacted. Student appeal procedures end.
If the office finds cause to further consider the circumstances of the case, the office will assemble an adjudication committee (hereafter referred to as the committee) within 10 academic days1 of the date the office received case materials.
The Academic Integrity Office will convene the committee to a hearing and provide all materials to the committee, the student, and the instructor at the time the notice of that hearing is delivered. Hearings shall take place on academic days, and the student and the instructor will be given at least 72 hours notice of the hearing.
At the hearing(s), the committee will provide sufficient opportunity for both principals to present their positions and shall allow each principal the right to question those presentation(s) to the committee. The hearing(s) shall be conducted in a fair and expeditious manner, but shall not be subject to the rules governing a legal proceeding. Each principal shall have the right to be present and to have one advisor present at all hearings. In no such case shall the advisor be an attorney, unless he or she is a member of the UB faculty who is not acting in a legal capacity on behalf of a principal. An advisor may not speak on behalf of a principal or otherwise address members of the hearing committee. Either principal may ask the committee chair if they may participate in hearings remotely. In exceptional circumstances, such as where either party is considered to pose a physical threat to the other or to the committee, the committee chair may require that either principal participate remotely.
The technical and formal rules of evidence applicable in a court of law are not applicable at academic integrity hearings, and the committee may review all relevant and reliable information that will contribute to an informed final decision. The committee shall only consider information relevant to the current alleged misconduct. Information regarding a student’s formerly alleged or documented academic misconduct cannot aid in determining whether or not the student is responsible for violating academic integrity in the current case. However, such history may be introduced during the sanctioning phase of the case under review. At the conclusion of the hearings, the committee will meet privately to deliberate the case. All hearings and committee meetings shall be confidential.
The committee will provide the student, the instructor, the department chair, the Academic Integrity Office, and the school/college dean, with a written statement of findings and any sanctions assigned within 10 academic days1 of the final meeting of the committee.
The decision made by the committee may take one of three forms.
No Right to Further Appeal
The decision of the committee is final and no further appeal is available.
Note: 1 Academic days are defined as weekdays, when classes are in session, not including the summer or winter sessions as defined by the regular university academic calendar. With the agreement of all principals and the Academic Integrity Office, proceedings may continue during non-academic days.
The Academic Integrity Office shall assemble a pool of faculty and students willing to participate on adjudication committees for academic integrity cases. The Office of Academic Integrity is responsible for ensuring that the pool reflects the diversity of the campus community and for training all members of the adjudication pool. It is the responsibility of each decanal unit to name student and faculty members to this pool. With the assistance of the Academic Integrity Office, each decanal unit will update its pool membership annually. Accordingly, each year, decanal units will also solicit departments to invite faculty and student representatives for service in the academic integrity pool. To ensure a suitable breadth and depth of membership in the pool, the Academic Integrity Office will encourage departments to facilitate continuous academic integrity training and development of faculty and students for future hearings. Typically duration of service in the academic integrity pool is two years.
From this pool, the Academic Integrity Office will form an adjudication committee for each hearing of no fewer than two faculty members, two graduate students, and one member of the Academic Integrity Office. Members from the academic integrity pool will be selected so that no one member will be involved in a disproportionate number of academic integrity cases. To that aim, the student and the instructor shall have five academic days to request, without stipulating a reason, the replacement of one member of the adjudication committee assembled to hear the case. If any principal finds the replacement committee member inappropriate, the party shall transmit, within five additional academic days1 of member identification, a written statement articulating grounds for objection to the Academic Integrity Office. The Academic Integrity Office will review and then rule on the merits of the objection, and either retain or replace the committee member. Each committee member shall have the option of disqualifying him/herself from the committee by stipulating reasons why he or she feels unable to review the case in an unbiased fashion.
Members of the adjudication committee have an obligation to maintain the confidentiality of hearing proceedings and of all supporting materials or testimony presented. If a breach of confidentiality by either principal is formally brought to the attention of the adjudication committee, upon a majority vote of the committee, it may choose to review this breach for possible misconduct. If a committee member is charged with misconduct, their alleged breach of confidentiality will be reviewed by an alternate adjudication committee. Such review shall take precedence over the pending case, a misconduct hearing shall be conducted, and findings shall be transmitted, in writing, to the principals and committee members. Findings will be placed in a supplemental file of the case proceedings. Such findings may then be considered in the subsequent review of the case.
Most severe
| Range of Possible Sanctions | Repeat |
---|---|---|
Having a different student take an exam. | F in course with transcript notation, dismissal from the major, suspension, expulsion | suspension, expulsion
|
Hiring or having someone to do an online course. | F in course with transcript notation, dismissal from the major, suspension, expulsion | suspension, expulsion
|
Purchasing or selling and submitting materials. | F in course with transcript notation, dismissal from the major, suspension, expulsion | suspension, expulsion
|
Handing in another’s work.
| F in course with transcript notation, dismissal from the major, suspension, expulsion | suspension, expulsion
|
Severe
| Range of Possible Sanctions | Repeat |
---|---|---|
Cell phone use during an exam. | 0 on assignment, F in course, mandatory remediation | F in course with transcript notation |
Possessing a cheat sheet. | 0 on assignment, F in course, mandatory remediation | F in course with transcript notation |
Changing answers on an exam and asking for a regrade. | 0 on assignment, F in course, mandatory remediation | F in course with transcript notation |
Plagiarism. | 0 on assignment, F in course, mandatory remediation | F in course with transcript notation |
Falsifying data. | 0 on assignment, F in course, mandatory remediation | F in course with transcript notation |
Copying someone else’s lab report or homework. | 0 on assignment, F in course, mandatory remediation | F in course with transcript notation |
Copying from another person’s exam.
| 0 on assignment, F in course, mandatory remediation | F in course with transcript notation |
Using the same paper for multiple classes. | 0 on assignment, F in course, mandatory remediation |
|
Less severe
| Range of Possible Sanctions | Repeat |
---|---|---|
Improper citation of others work | Warning, revise work, mandatory remediation | 0 on assignment, F in course |
Illicitly obtaining copies of old exams. | Warning, revise work, 0 on assignment, F in course, mandatory remediation | F in course
|
Working together where it is explicitly forbidden. | Warning, revise work, 0 on assignment, F in course, mandatory remediation | F in course |
Aiding or abetting a student’s academic dishonesty or violating the integrity of a course or academic activity whether in a course or not. | Referral to Campus Judicial Procedures or University Police Department |
|
The above list of sample academic integrity infractions and sanctions is not exhaustive. It is meant to offer some general information about common infractions and possible associated sanctions.