Amanda Friedline, a junior athletic training student from Howell, has received a prestigious scholarship from the National Athletic Trainers' Association (NATA) Research and Education Foundation for the 2007-08 school year.
Amanda Friedline, a junior athletic training student from Howell, has received a prestigious scholarship from the National Athletic Trainers' Association (NATA) Research and Education Foundation for the 2007-08 school year.
The foundation annually sponsors approximately 70 of the merit-based $2,000 scholarships, which are designed for students intending to pursue the athletic training profession. Of the 73 awarded in 2006, 39 were presented to undergraduates, 25 to students in master's programs and nine to students in doctoral programs.
Friedline and the other recipients for 2007 will be recognized during this year's William E. Newell Athletic Training Student Awards Luncheon scheduled as part of the 59th Annual NATA Meeting and Symposium taking place in Anaheim, Calif., on Tuesday-Saturday, June 26-30.
"Amanda has great potential in this profession and I am so excited about her future," said Dr. Kirk Brumels, who is an assistant professor of kinesiology and head athletic trainer at Hope, and sponsored her for the award. "Amanda's strengths are her work ethic, dedication, academic ability/inquisitiveness, promptness, and high level of responsibility. Her ability to transfer classroom knowledge to clinical situations is very good."
"She is currently assisting me in a student/faculty collaborative research project regarding long term compression and its effect on reduction of ankle edema," he said. "She is someone that I can count on to perform assigned tasks with a high degree of competence and skill."
"In addition, to her intellectual capabilities, Amanda has a very likeable personality that fits well into the socialization surrounding athletics and health care," Brumels said.
Eligibility requirements for the scholarships include membership in NATA, sponsorship by a certified athletic trainer, a grade point average of 3.2 or higher on a 4.0 scale and junior status. Considerations include not only the applicants' athletic training experience but also participation in other campus activities.
Friedline's goal is to work in a college setting as an athletic trainer. In addition to research with Brumels, her involvement in Hope's program has included placements as a student athletic trainer with the women's tennis, football, women's basketball, softball, cross country and baseball teams. She has also worked as a first responder with the college's summer athletic camps. This coming summer, she will be working at the Disney World-Wide Sports athletic camps in Orlando, Fla.
Her other activities at the college have included serving as a resident assistant, with additional responsibility as a neighborhood coordinator for a group of the college's cottage housing units, and also the annual student-organized Dance Marathon fundraiser for Helen DeVos Children's Hospital of Grand Rapids.
Friedline is the daughter of James and Patricia Friedline of Howell, and a 2004 graduate of Howell High School.
Certified athletic trainers (ATCs) are unique health care providers who specialize in the prevention, assessment, treatment and rehabilitation of injuries and illnesses that occur to athletes and the physically active. In April 1998, Hope became only the fourth institution and the first private, liberal arts college in the state of Michigan to have its athletic training program receive accreditation from the Commission on Accreditation of Allied Health Education Programs (CAAHEP).
NATA was founded in 1950 when a core group of about 200 athletic trainers met in Kansas City to discuss the future. Today, the NATA membership spans the globe and includes approximately 30,000 allied health care professionals. NATA members can be found in schools, on the sidelines of professional sports, in hospital and clinics and in industrial settings.
The NATA Research and Education Foundation is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to enhancing health care for the physically active through funding and support of research and education. The foundation, based in Dallas, was formed in the early 1990s and is led by a volunteer board and a full-time director.