Joan Rocks

Professor, Department Chair, Athletic Training Program Director
Department of Health & Sport Sciences

Although Joan has over 32 years of athletic training experience, her entire career has been focused on teaching and striving to be an effective educator. Her “biography” is therefore based on her teaching journey. It is Joan’s educational belief that any instructor must establish the building blocks that create a strong foundation in the student’s learning processes. The basic building blocks that are taught at a young age include, trust, loyalty, friendship, and the ability to focus on future goals, including the goal of continual lifelong learning. As an educator, Joan strives to continually strengthen the foundation of athletic training students with those building blocks that allow her to not only teach the student to think, but to have them embrace the knowledge they are learning. The main educational goal Joan embraces is to open the windows in the minds of students to the continual acquisition of knowledge and instill a strong desire in them to keep learning. But perhaps her primary educational goal is to develop quality critical thinkers and the complete professional who is consistently inquisitive in their application of learned medical skills and techniques.