The College of Applied Science and Technology (CAST) at Illinois State University is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year! This series, CAST 50×50, is designed to highlight 50 faculty, staff, students, alumni, and organizations within CAST that make the college special. These notable people will tell you that every day in CAST is a great day to be a Redbird!
Today, Chelsea Kuehner from the School of Kinesiology and Recreation is featured in #CAST50!
Q: What is your position within CAST?
A: I am an instructional assistant professor. I serve as the clinical education coordinator for the athletic training program and am also the director of the Sports Medicine and Rehabilitation Therapy (SMART) Clinic on campus.
Q: When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
A: When I was a child, I wanted to be an archaeologist. I had big dreams about digging up ancient dinosaur bones. But as I grew up, I realized that I did not have that kind of patience. So now I’ve switched my focus over to living human bones!
Q: If you could only eat one type of food for the rest of your life what would it be?
A: Oh, that’s a hard one, I would have to say pho. I think I could eat some variation of pho every day for the rest of my life and be pretty content.
Q: If you could give one piece of advice to undergraduate students, what would it be?
A: I would tell them that many of my favorite events in life have come at a time when my best-made plans have gone completely off the rails. So don’t worry so much when things don’t go according to plan. Life and career paths tend to look more like the random scribbling of a toddler than the straight line of an architect.
Q: What do you enjoy most about your job, and what is the most rewarding part of your job?
A: I really enjoy watching a student have, what I call, their “aha moment,” that moment when all of the separate components of the clinical education that we provide to our students finally click in their head as one cohesive body of knowledge. At that moment, you can really see that they feel confident in their ability to act as an autonomous clinician.
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