After 33 years on the CU Physical Therapy and CU PM&R faculty, including 28 years as director of clinical education, Jenny Rodriguez, PT, DPT, MHS, retired from the University of Colorado on January 13, 2024. Dr. Rodriguez holds the distinction of being the longest serving director of PT clinical education in the country. Prior to coming to CU, Dr. Rodriguez worked with patients with neurologic injuries in Inpatient Rehabilitation at Spalding Rehabilitation Hospital and at the academic medical center at Washington University (Barnes Hospital), with additional teaching responsibilities there. In 1990, she began consulting for CU PT, joining the faculty in 1991. Dr. Rodriguez earned her BS and MS in PT from Washington University in St. Louis, and a transitional DPT from CU.

Dr. Rodriguez had extensive involvement in shaping the CU PT Program during her time on the faculty. She helped develop the DPT curriculum in 2004, and revamped the curriculum in 2014, including implementing service learning and working with a consultant to guide faculty and clinicians in working together to revamp the clinical education curriculum resulting in ICE and the yearlong internship. In the new curriculum, Dr. Rodriguez coordinated the service-learning component that started with the Community Volunteer Program, where CU PT paired students with someone in the community who lived with a disability, such as stroke, cerebral palsy, or amputation. Students connected with their volunteers in the first semester of school and made connections across the 3-year curriculum. The goal was for students to learn from their volunteers to better prepare them to understand future patients' lives. The service-learning component also included students completing a project that would benefit their volunteer. In the final year of the Program, students designed and implemented their own service-learning project. Examples include Winter Olympics for students at the Anchor School, promoting physical activity for middle school students at North Middle School, and diabetes education for patients at the Stout Street Clinic. This program was discontinued when CU PT re-vamped the DPT curriculum in 2014 to make room for the yearlong internship.

Dr. Rodriguez helped establish a partnership with the Stout Street Clinic in 1997, which serves unhoused individuals, and was able to develop a monthly PT clinic, which continues to this day. Hundreds of PT students have participated at the Stour Street Clinic. Dr. Rodriguez worked with Dr. Mary Jane Rapport to create an Education Scholarship Group to support faculty in completing education scholarship, and receive feedback from faculty colleagues, including grant review. Dr. Rodriguez also worked with Dr. Dawn Magnusson to create the Student Enrichment Program to enhance student success and well-being, including peer and commercial tutoring, individual development plans, connections with academic advisors, and community engagement. Dr. Rodriguez has had numerous teaching responsibilities including Foundations of Intervention, Neuromuscular Conditions, Geriatric Rehabilitation, Professional Development I, and Clinical Education III. She assumed the role of director of clinical education in 1996 when Jody Delehanty passed away.

Dr. Rodriguez describes her time at CU as “ideal. I cannot imagine a better place to spend 32+ years. I had the pleasure of working with four Program Directors who supported me in my development as a faculty member, educator, scholar, and leader. CU PT faculty are outstanding - excellent educators, clinicians, and researchers who are humble, collaborative, innovative. They strive for excellence, not for notoriety, but collectively, to be the best Program possible. The staff is superb and enables faculty to accomplish what they do. The mutual respect between faculty and students also results in making the Program better.” When asked what she will miss most about being on the CU PT faculty, Dr. Rodriguez says, “seeing the students develop over their time at CUPT and then seeing them in the clinic as alumni when I visited clinics and when I have been out and about in the community. I will miss seeing staff and faculty colleagues and friends on a regular basis. Fortunately, I know I will stay in touch with faculty and staff, which I am already enjoying!”

In retirement, Dr. Rodriguez is looking forward to having a more peaceful mind, getting together with friends and family more frequently, reading more, going to the gym, and getting more rest. She is also assisting her father with medical appointments, and volunteering at the Stout Street Clinic. She also hopes to take piano lessons and travel. She says, “I am purposely not overscheduling so I can enjoy time and let things unfold.”

In closing, Dr. Rodriguez shares, “I would like to express my sincere gratitude for all the opportunities I had at CU PT. Although the work was hard, it was also really fun and invigorating. I grew so much as a person over the last 33 years, I can't imagine a better place to be. I feel so honored to have been a part of the Program and humbled by the outpouring of wishes I have received upon my retirement. The new Clinical Education Team is fantastic and will lead clinical education to the next level. It is also exciting to think about how the Program will continue to evolve in the future. I wish the students, staff, and faculty the very best!” CU Physical Therapy and Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation wishes Dr. Rodriguez the very best in this new chapter of her life, and thanks her for her immeasurable contributions to the Program and field of physical therapy!