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Anna Grasso, MS, OTR/L, CAPS, describes herself as always being on the rough-and-tumble side when it comes to sports. That’s why when she’s not teaching in the Occupational Therapy (OT) department at Salus University, she finds time to mix it up in the rough-and-tumble sport of rugby.
An athlete throughout her high school years — soccer, basketball, softball, track and field, snowboarding, you name it, she played it — she first became interested in rugby during her freshman year at SUNY Plattsburgh in upstate New York.
“I was always on at least one team growing up, but when I got to college I didn’t have a plan for sports. I was feeling like I didn’t have my social and physical outlet,” said Grasso. “I saw flyers posted for rugby and I initially thought it was nowhere near my interests. But I showed up and started playing and never really looked back.”
Grasso said she was drawn to the physicality and aggression of the sport, as well as the camaraderie that develops among rugby players. She joined the Philadelphia Women’s Rugby Football Club when she took the job at Salus in 2018 and moved to the area.
She believes getting knocked down a lot while playing rugby has translated into her teaching.
“I think in some ways rugby kind of hardens you and helps you with perseverance,” she said, adding she’s never had a serious injury while playing the sport. “Sometimes you have a bad day or a bad lecture and you have to brush yourself off and keep going.”
Grasso is the OT department’s academic fieldwork coordinator and an assistant professor. Her primary responsibilities include arranging all the clinical placements for OT students. First-year OT students have three, one-week clinical experiences and second-year students need two, 12-week clinical placements (for a total of 24 weeks of clinical during their second year.)
In addition, her own clinical specialties include assistive technology and home modification to support aging-in-place.
“I really love teaching. I bounced around a lot in my clinical practice, working in pediatric and adult settings,” she said. “But none of those really inspired the excitement and passion that teaching has provided for me.”
She also believes being a good student translates into being a good teacher. To that end, she is currently enrolled in Temple University’s OT doctorate program.
“I’ve always enjoyed being a student as well, and I think as a teacher, you have to be a good student to stay ahead of the information that’s out there and to make sure you’re presenting the most up-to-date, evidence-based information to your students,” she said.
Before coming to Salus, Grasso spent a year teaching in the OT program at Ithaca College where she earned her Master of Science in Occupational Therapy (MSOT) degree.
“The feel of the Salus program is really unique because we’re a small department, and it really has a family feel,” she said. “We have each other’s backs and are really open with one another. And, I think the students feel like they become part of that, too.”
Grasso said not all students want to become close with their professors, but the ones who do can certainly do that at Salus — a hallmark of the University’s personalized educational offerings.
“In that way, I think we go above and beyond some of the more established programs because we really emphasize that relationship. Not only with each other on the faculty but with the students as well,” she said.
In addition to her continued academic pursuits, Grasso said she continues to learn from her students as well.
“It’s a real partnership between the faculty and the students in the OT department,” she said.
She enjoys fieldwork coordination for the OT students and hopes to keep her hand in teaching for quite a while longer as she advances her career.
“Maybe someday I can help out other new programs to develop and bring more OTs into the world,” she said.
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