Bay Path University appoints Anna Zendell to direct Master’s of Healthcare Management program
Longmeadow, MA—Bay Path University is pleased to announce that Anna Zendell, PhD, has been named Program Director of the University’s Master’s of Healthcare Management Program.
Dr. Zendell brings more than three decades of experience as an educator, researcher, and social welfare advocate to her role. She was most recently the senior faculty program director of the School of Health Sciences and the School of Graduate Studies at Excelsior University, where she oversaw master’s degree programs in health sciences, healthcare administration and public administration, in addition to graduate certificates in public health equity, nutrition, and informatics.
“The healthcare sector is facing a series of challenges, including an aging healthcare workforce, increasingly heavy workloads, and high levels of burnout,” says Dr. Zendell. “I was drawn to Bay Path’s program because it positions students to truly lead and not just manage. It’s a program that empowers people to be a force for change at a moment when change is imperative.”
Dr. Zendell has been a practitioner, educator, administrator, and caregiver, and throughout her career, she has applied that experience to the development of curriculum and teaching methods focused on Population Health, Health Care Systems, Screening, and Research to Practice. She has published research looking at aging, the roles of sibling caregivers, and the impact of regular physical activity on health. Her recent work focuses on collaborative teaching, experiential learning, and working with adult learners.
Dr. Zendell sees Bay Path’s emphasis on interprofessional dialogue and collaboration as a key aspect that distinguishes the University’s healthcare management program. “There are solutions to the various challenges we’re experiencing, and many of them came out of the pandemic, which presented a rare opportunity for healthcare to change very quickly and very dramatically,” she says. “That heightened awareness and the responsiveness it provoked can be applied to strategic planning and decision making. We are in a position to harness the broad perspectives that occupational therapists, physical therapists, social workers, surgeons, physician assistants and others bring to the conversation and act on them. When you’re sitting in your own silo, you cannot make change happen. We are looking at how to bring everyone together to be the solution.”
Bay Path University was founded in 1897. Bay Path’s enrolled population of over 3,000 includes traditional undergraduates; adult women at The American Women's College, the first all-women, all-online accredited degree program in the country; and women and men master’s and doctoral students. Bay Path’s goal is to give students confidence in the fundamentals of their chosen field, the curiosity to question the ordinary, the leadership to show initiative, and the desire to make a difference.
Please visit the MS in Healthcare Management program page to learn about curriculum, faculty, program options and more!