Dr. Yolanda Griffiths, professor of occupational therapy and former program director, will conclude her eight years of service for the Occupational Therapy Department within Drake University’s College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences (CPHS) on May 30, 2025.
Dr. Griffiths arrived at Drake University in June of 2017, when the Occupational Therapy Doctorate (OTD) program was still in its infancy. As she stepped through the doors, she immediately got to work in getting the young program on its feet. She helped nail initial accreditation and fine-tune the program’s curriculum to bring in more students. She also helped hire and mentor faculty, many of whom were early in their professional careers, and led them to discover their potential.
Dr. Griffiths went on to serve as program director until 2022, when she stepped down and hired current program director Dr. Leslie Jackson. In her time at Drake, she taught topics in research, leadership and management, creative occupations, theory, history, and mental health. She received the Richard Morrow Transformational Leader Award in 2019 for her role in launching the program and the student-nominated CPHS Teacher of the Year Award in 2023. Additionally, she has served on editorial boards and published work for several academic journals, presented at countless professional conferences, and written a textbook on the history of the profession.
Dr. Griffiths’ retirement has been a long time coming. She has been in the OT profession for 47 years, with 32 being in academia. Her education began with a Bachelor’s in Occupational Therapy (the standard degree for the profession at the time) from the University of Puget Sound. She received her Master’s in Counseling from the University of Oklahoma and her doctorate from Creighton University.
Dr. Griffiths’ husband’s service in the Air Force brought her to jobs all over the country. Her clinical career began in California, where she played a role in implementing OT in school systems stretching from East Los Angeles to Palm Springs. From there, she has been employed in Virginia, North Dakota, Hawaii, and Nebraska before finally landing in Iowa. She has worked in several psychiatric facilities, the NICU, and within in-home intervention programs, to name a few. She has specialized in trauma, substance abuse, art therapy, eating disorders, domestic violence, and mental health in all stages of life.
“I was interested in art, mental health, psychology and pediatrics before I went into OT,” Griffiths said. “My career in occupational therapy melded many of my personal and professional interests.”
Dr. Griffiths entered academia in 1992, when Creighton asked her to be their academic fieldwork coordinator. Two decades later, she had helped develop their OTD degree, their first capstone program, and some of their hybrid and online programs. She had begun to consider retirement when College of St. Mary, a private college in Omaha, asked for her help in stabilizing their program. And so, she did that for another five years.
Once again, Dr. Griffiths was going to retire. But then, in 2017, Drake called. The rest was history.
“I’m going to miss the people at Drake the most,” Griffiths said. “I will miss watching the students’ eyes light up when they get something that I’m teaching. I loved that.”
Dr. Griffiths said that her career came full circle this spring, when she presented research with students at the national AOTA conference in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Being a part of their excitement was the perfect note to end on.
When asked for her parting words of advice, Dr. Griffiths said to prioritize moments of self-care every day.
“It’s like being on an airplane, where they say to put your mask on first before helping others,” Griffiths said. “Remember that.”
After so many years of unwavering devotion to both the occupational therapy profession and the people in it, Dr. Griffiths is most looking forward to determining her own schedule in retirement.