Joseph Rivera wins Consortium of Humanities, Ethics, and Professionalism/ Journal of Humanities in Rehabilitation Student Essay Contest

Joseph Rivera wins 1st place in the 5th annual physical therapy essay contest. 

The Programs in Physical Therapy is proud to announce Joseph Rivera as the first place finalist in the 5th annual physical therapy essay contest. This contest was co-sponsored by the American Council of Academic Physical Therapy Consortium for the Humanities, Ethics, and Professionalism (CHEP) and the Journal for Humanities in Rehabilitation (JHR).

We are excited to be the first to share this news! An excerpt can be found below, as well as a link to the full essay:

In the fall of 2021, I started as an SPT with a hybrid remote/in-person course schedule. In our Professional Leadership and Practice course, we began the semester with discussions about safe spaces, identity, power, and privilege. These conversations can be challenging under the best of circumstances, but we were holding our discussions remotely and with people whom we barely knew. One of our earliest classes focused on identity and our personal experiences with our various identities. As a Puerto Rican man who has spent a lot of time in predominantly white elite educational spaces, I have given a lot of thought to identity presentation and how I am perceived by others. It was clear to me that many of my classmates never truly had to examine their identities in this way due to the various positions of privilege that they occupied. I was nervous about sharing my own experiences with relative strangers and based on previous experiences. I was convinced that nothing productive would come out of our conversations.