March 28, 2024

Professor Earns Faculty Excellence Award

Faculty Excellence

Tara McManaway, professor and coordinator of the massage therapy program at the College of Southern Maryland,
received CSM’s Annual Faculty Excellence Award Honoring Permanent Faculty
during spring 2016 commencement ceremonies.

Tara McManaway is the recipient of this year’s Annual Faculty Excellence Award Honoring Permanent Faculty at the College of Southern Maryland. Ms. McManaway is a professor and coordinator of the massage therapy program at the college.

CSM Health Sciences Chair Dr. Laura Polk said Ms. McManaway’s leadership and innovative approach to massage education have created graduates who are well prepared to apply business principles and to run a professional massage practice while providing holistic care to clients.

“A recent example of Professor McManaway’s creativity is the design of a collaborative experience between massage and nursing students during behavioral health and end-of-life simulations,” Dr. Polk said. “Each group of students came away with a new perspective of the value of touch when working with these vulnerable populations.”

Because of this visionary approach, Polk said graduates of the massage therapy program consistently earn a 100 percent pass rate on all licensing exams. Also, two students at CSM in the last four years have won national contests in the field.

Ms. McManaway said the responsibility of teaching massage therapy is about more than teaching facts and theories.

“As an educator, I see my role as facilitating learning, delegating responsibility for learning and demonstrating professional behavior onto the students, coaching students, setting a model for classroom and professional behavior, imparting knowledge and upholding professional boundaries necessary for successful massage therapy practice,” Ms. McManaway said.

As a professor and program coordinator at CSM since December 2003, Ms. McManaway advises students and develops curricula, both face-to-face and in web-based courses in the massage program and in the college’s Division of Health Sciences.

McManaway serves on the Behavioral Review Team at the college, is the vice president of the Faculty Senate Executive Board, and chair of the Faculty Wellness Committee and Massage Program Advisory Board. She has served as a conference coordinator for the mental health first aid instructor training, chair of the Massage Therapy Program Advisory Board and a member of the Academic Standards Committee.

While at CSM, she has created two new Maryland Higher Education Commission-approved Certificates in Massage for basic and advanced training for massage therapists. McManaway also reviews textbooks for major publishing companies.

At CSM, she has spearheaded the Mental Health First Aid Certification Training Program and she received the college’s Community Service Award in 2004 for supporting the Calvert 350 Celebration event by providing a massage and wellness booth.

Most recently, she presented a research poster session at the International Massage Therapy Research Conference in Seattle, Wash. The poster, “Integrating Body-Oriented Therapies in Trauma Informed Practice,” also was displayed at the Australian Association of Massage Therapists National Conference in May.

McManaway holds a bachelor of arts in philosophy and religion from James Madison University, a master of divinity in counseling and theology from Vanderbilt University’s School of Divinity, a certificate from the professional massage program in advanced massage and bodywork from the Baltimore School of Massage and Holistic Health Center and a certificate of advanced graduate study in counseling and supervision, and mental health counseling from Johns Hopkins University’s School of Education.

For a full listing of recipients of the annual faculty excellence awards at CSM, visit the CSM website.

For more about the College of Southern Maryland, visit their Leader member page.

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