Ithaca College
12/08/2025 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 12/08/2025 11:57
In Sync
In Sync
By Kim Wunner, December 8, 2025
Physical and mental health are integrated into the training of Ithaca's performing artists.
Theatre students work with Physical Therapy and Athletic Training students in the Performing Arts Walk-In Clinic. Photo Credit: Connor Lange '19.
Theatre students work with Physical Therapy and Athletic Training students in the Performing Arts Walk-In Clinic. Photo Credit: Connor Lange '19.
Five distinct schools, one distinct vision. IC's vision is about what happens when we explore, innovate, and lean into what could be possible. There is no better example of that than what is affectionately called PAWI-or, more formally, the Performing Arts Wellness Initiative.
IC Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs Melanie Stein encourages cross-disciplinary partnerships between schools. It allows us to ask, "How can we help each other?" That is exactly the question PAWI is answering. The "we" in this equation is the School of Music, Theatre, and Dance (MTD) and the School of Health Sciences and Human Performance (HSHP).The PAWI program blends each school's expertise to find the space in the Venn diagram where performance and wellness overlap.
The Ithaca College campus is one where cross-school partnerships are encouraged, and the emergence of PAWI is no different. Back in the 1990s, a walk-in Physical Therapy (PT) clinic was offered by HSHP to performing arts students, supervised by now-retired PT faculty Nick Quarrier. Performers in training would visit the clinic-staffed by PT students under the guidance of PT faculty-to get help with minor strains and pains. The goals were injury prevention and teaching injury self-management strategies. The treatments were usually isolated to one-time visits, and anything requiring more in-depth care was referred either to "regular" (scheduled) Physical Therapy session in the campus clinic or to practitioners off campus.
"What does the student experience feel like-to the student? And how do you inject health and wellness principles into that experience in a different way than what we were already doing?"
Steve TenEyck, Dean of the School of Music, Theatre, and Dance
Theatre students working on alignment and rotation with a physical therapy and athletic training student team. Photo Credit: Connor Lange '19.
Additionally, PT students would help train actors for roles on stage that required athletic movements. In that way, the collaborations were more informal. And at that time, it was the Department of Theatre Arts.
When that department and the School of Music were merged into the present-day School of Music, Theatre, and Dance, it became clear that many of the services and needs of theatre students and faculty were also shared by music students
HSHP Dean Christina Moylan explains, "We decided this was an important partnership that could and should be elevated and formalized. We needed to expand beyond Physical Therapy."
MTD Dean Steve TenEyck had an interest in looking at students' health beyond injury prevention and rehabilitation. He raised the questions: "What does the student experience feel like-to the student? And how do you inject health and wellness principles into that experience in a different way than what we were already doing?"
To answer those questions, Deans Moylan and TenEyck turned to Associate Professor and Chair of the Physical Therapy program Mike Costello, who had been running the PT walk-in clinic since 2017. They also brought in Clinical Professor and Chair of the Exercise Science and Athletic Training (AT) program, Chris Hummel.
This is where the innovation gets exciting. Dean Moylan explains, "Many of the motions that both theatre students and music students are doing are athletic in nature. There are lots of parallels." Together, Hummel and Costello realized that "our students could really benefit from collaborative, interprofessional practice through this performing arts wellness initiative."
In Spring 2025, the walk-in clinic had its first semester with combined PT and AT faculty (Costello, Hummel, and Teresa Chen, PT, PhD) and PT and AT students, offering two sessions per week. PT and AT students worked as a team when a client came in. They problem-solved and created exercise plans and strategies for addressing pain or injury. That semester, they saw 49 students for a total of 79 visits.
The collaboration between HSHP and MTD offers a cross discipline collaboration. The innovation point being where MTD students are being seen and treated by PT and AT students and faculty. Photo Credit: Connor Lange '19
The collaboration between HSHP and MTD offers a cross discipline collaboration. The innovation point being where MTD students are being seen and treated by PT and AT students and faculty. Photo Credit: Connor Lange '19
Since expanding to two sessions per week (the clinic's previous format offered only one), they have been able to provide more follow-up sessions. And of course, when persistent issues arise, the clinic offers referrals to specialists.
With this collaboration humming along, Dean TenEyck saw an opportunity to take it a step further. "Performing artists are a lot like athletes," he said. "And we have all these structures built for athletes-their physical wellness, their mental wellness, their conditioning. How can we think about performing artists in a similar context?" It was the mental health and conditioning component that came next.
The Exercise and Sport Sciences master's program in HSHP offers a concentration in mental performance. These faculty and students are now being integrated into the PAWI program. As Dean Moylan puts it, "Mental performance impacts all of us. Anyone in a leadership position, theatre and music students on stage, athletes on a field-we all experience things like performance anxiety."
How do you handle interprofessional conflict in an ensemble? How do you work with an instructor in your studio when they're pushing you hard? How do you handle anxiety and still perform at your best? If we replace "instructor" with "coach" and "ensemble" with "team," the issues are identical.
MTD students meet with both PT and AT students and faculty. Pictured here is Clinical Professor and Chair of the Exercise Science and Athletic Training (AT) program, Chris Hummel. Photo Credit: Connor Lange 19.
PAWI is now an interdepartmental and interschool committee exploring the many ways the schools can work together. Deb Wuest, a professor in the Department of Health Sciences and Public Health, now offers Wellness for the Performing Arts , a course on strategies for health and well-being for MTD students. The course includes practices such as meditation and mindfulness.
The Center for Counseling & Psychological Services (CAPS) is also part of PAWI. CAPS staff visit MTD students at orientation each year.
The collaboration also includes Amy Rominger, Clinical Associate Professor of Audiology in the Department of Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology, and the Hearing Aid Clinic, which addresses hearing loss and hearing health. Earlier this year, we wrote a story about the emphasis on hearing health in MTD classes.
It is a constant evolution.
The next question in this interschool collaboration was a bi-directional one: with so many of these services benefiting MTD, could MTD also benefit HSHP? The answer is yes.
There is a need in the health and wellness fields for standardized clinical patients-people who act as real patients for training purposes. Next semester, Professor Emeritus Greg Bostwick will return to South Hill to teach a new course, Acting for Clinical Standardized Patient Roles . In this class, MTD undergrads will learn how to serve as standardized patients for HSHP while gaining a highly marketable skill.
With PAWI, we see an answer to the question, "how can we help eachother?".
Take Care of Yourself
Visit the MTD Wellness hub to learn about PT Clinic hours, the Hearing Clinic, CAPS and resources for wellness.
Hands On Opportunities
Students of the School of Music, Theatre, and Dance and from the School of Health Sciences and Human Performance are working together. PAWI is an example of the unique cross-campus collaborations IC students have access to at Ithaca College.
Ithaca College published this content on December 08, 2025, and is solely responsible for the information contained herein. Distributed via Public Technologies (PUBT), unedited and unaltered, on December 08, 2025 at 17:57 UTC. If you believe the information included in the content is inaccurate or outdated and requires editing or removal, please contact us at [email protected]