Purdue master’s program in athletic training expands to Indianapolis location

Emily Goetz, a Purdue University athletic training graduate student, prepares to remove the face mask of a Purdue football helmet. (Tim Brouk)

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Purdue University’s athletic training program within the Department of Health and Kinesiology (HK) in the College of Health and Human Sciences (HHS) will expand its reach with a new Master of Science in Athletic Training (MSAT) degree for the Indianapolis location.

The Indianapolis program will launch in fall 2026 with an expected cohort of 25-30 students. To train these new graduate students, HK will welcome three new faculty members to be based in Indianapolis.

The fall launch of the new athletic training master’s program will coincide with the department’s launch of the new Master of Science in Sport Management (MSSM) program in Indianapolis, which collectively translates to a major expansion of experiential learning opportunities for students.

Scott Lawrance

“Indianapolis offers additional areas that we can work in and access to sites and places that we just can’t use on a day-to-day basis here in West Lafayette,” said Scott Lawrance, HK clinical professor and director of athletic training education at Purdue.

Ceridwyn King, HHS associate dean for Indianapolis and strategic initiatives and the White Lodging Services Head of Purdue’s White Lodging-J.W. Marriott, Jr. School of Hospitality and Tourism Management, is thrilled for HK’s expected strong presence in Indianapolis. The school’s hospitality and tourism management undergraduate major will be launching in August, too, giving HHS three programs making their debuts in Indianapolis.

“These programs are uniquely positioned to leverage the substantial investment in sports and hospitality infrastructure, both existing and forthcoming, in Indianapolis,” King said. “With the city’s ambitious vision to become the global sports epicenter by 2050, our MSAT and MSSM students will have a front-row seat to this exciting transformation. Even more thrilling is the role our Purdue HK graduates in Indianapolis will play in realizing this vision through their active involvement in strategic industry partnerships and opportunities.”

Li-Shan Chou, professor and department head of HK, said talks of an athletic training graduate program began in 2023, two years before his arrival to Purdue.

“I think it’s very natural to be establishing our new programs or expanding our programs from here, West Lafayette, to Indianapolis,” Chou said. “We always support the university’s initiatives in expanding. So, I think, to me, this is a natural progression, and we are really just at the right spot at the right time.

“I think our job is to educate the residents from the state and allow them to have a better future down the road,” he said. “So, this kind of development in Indianapolis really provides us those tools and enhances our contribution back to the state.”

More opportunities

The Purdue athletic training program has given generations of students opportunities to work with high-level athletic programs at Purdue and in area high schools and middle schools. In Indianapolis, those opportunities have the potential to grow with the NCAA headquarters just a short walk from Purdue University in Indianapolis. Then, there are the professional sports opportunities in the form of the Indianapolis Colts, Indianapolis Indians, Indiana Fever and Indiana Pacers, who all train minutes from Purdue’s Indianapolis facilities.

“On average, our students graduate with more than 2,000 hours of learning in the clinic — hands-on learning with real patients. So, in Indianapolis, it’ll have the same structure as what we have here, but the sites are going to have that nice Indianapolis twist,” Lawrance said. “They’re going to be involved in the professional sports realms, and these are sites that we would love to use here on a day-to-day basis. We just can’t ask a student to drive every day down to Indianapolis, not when they’re also attending class in West Lafayette.”

Lawrance noted some of Purdue’s athletic training graduate students are peppered around the country working with athletic organizations as far away as Utah, Arizona and Connecticut. However, the expansion of the MSAT program in Indianapolis will offer students more clinical opportunities within central Indiana.

Growing by leaps and bounds

When it comes to athletic training graduate students, gaining internships and other experiential opportunities, working in Big Ten facilities like those found in West Lafayette will still be in play, but the program will take full advantage of Indianapolis.

“We will eventually be bringing in more students than any other program out there,” Lawrance said. “And so, we’re on the path to becoming the world’s largest.”

 

 

About Purdue University

Purdue University is a public research university leading with excellence at scale. Ranked among top 10 public universities in the United States, Purdue discovers, disseminates and deploys knowledge with a quality and at a scale second to none. More than 106,000 students study at Purdue across multiple campuses, locations and modalities, including more than 57,000 at our main campus locations in West Lafayette and Indianapolis. Committed to affordability and accessibility, Purdue’s main campus has frozen tuition 14 years in a row. See how Purdue never stops in the persistent pursuit of the next giant leap — including its integrated, comprehensive Indianapolis urban expansion; the Mitch Daniels School of Business; Purdue Computes; and the One Health initiative — at https://www.purdue.edu/president/strategic-initiatives.