Welcome to the Massage Therapy Program. Spring 2008 is the 14th anniversary of the Massage Therapy Program, started by Paul David Tuff in the spring of 1994 under the direction of former Dean Phil Nash and Fitness & Dance instructor Dawn Sare. Currently, the Massage Therapy Program offers a Massage Practitioner certificate of 338 hours, and a Massage Therapist certificate of over 700 hours if you complete the requirements for the Certificate of Achievement or Associate in Science degree in Massage Therapy.
Massage therapy is an ancient healing art that has awakened many of us to the intimate connection between the body, mind and spirit. Massage also helps us remember our interconnection with all human beings, and with the world around us. Massage allows us to connect with one another at the deepest level of our being, encouraging interpersonal trust, respect and reverence. Massage can therefore act as a bond that ties us together into one human family as well as a salve that heals the emotional wounds that life can inflict, wounds that can fill us with fear, hate, intolerance and despair. Without these connections, peace, health, and happiness are elusive states in our stressful and fragmented world.
Massage goes hand in hand with health and well-being, the desire to serve humanity, the need we have to touch and be touched, and our wish to live in harmony with each other and the environments that support us all. Therefore, massage can be an integral part of not only our business and personal relationships with one another but also of a wellness-oriented health-care system with a bottom-line goal not of profits but a healthier citizenry. Indeed, since massage therapy is a vastly underutilized therapeutic modality of supreme efficacy, it has equally vast potential for helping to make us all healthier and happier. It is recognition of and respect for this vast potential for healing and interconnection that we hope to inspire in you and in those you have the privilege to touch.
Our goal for the MPC Massage Therapy Program is to introduce people to massage and to the understanding that massage is about connection with oneself and with others, connection that is safe, ethical, nurturing, compassionate and mutually rewarding. For those who want to explore massage as a career, we want to train entry-level massage therapy practitioners who will be touchstones who verify the many healing benefits that quality massage therapy can provide. These benefits include self-awareness, a sense of connection with self and others, relief of pain and stress, relaxation, enhanced fitness and health, and overall normalization of the physiologic functions that can be impaired by the stresses of daily life.
In recognizing and celebrating the connections that massage can establish or reaffirm in and between each of us, we welcome a commitment¾to ourselves and to all those with whom we share the awesome power of touch¾to make this world a better place for us all.
Click here for a map of our new location, PE 205, southwest corner of the gymnasium building on the second floor (the old dance studio, more recently the fitness center)