Alice C. Jantzen


Alice Catherine Jantzen was an American occupational therapist. She was the first president of the American Occupational Therapy Foundation, and chair of the occupational therapy department at the University of Florida from 1958 to 1976.

Early life and education

Jantzen was born in Brookline, Massachusetts, the daughter of Francis T. Jantzen and Alice Doyle Jantzen. She graduated from Wellesley College in 1939, with further professional training at the Boston School of Occupational Therapy. She earned a master's degree in education at the University of Pennsylvania. She earned a Ph.D. in counseling psychology from Boston College.

Career

Jantzen was in the United States Navy for twelve years, including three years on active duty, and worked at the United States Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C. during World War II.
Jantzen was a professor at Western Michigan College from 1954 to 1956, and taught at the University of Pennsylvania. From 1958 to 1976, she taught at the University of Florida, where she was head of the occupational therapy department. "It's nice that you can go out an treat ten patients a day," she explained. "But if I teach ten students a day and then they go out and each teaches ten more, I accomplish much more--it's the geometrics of an educator's influence that interest me." From 1965 to 1966, she was the first president of the American Occupational Therapy Foundation. She was also director of occupational therapy services at Shands Teaching Hospital in Gainesville, and president of the Florida Occupational Therapy Association. In 1971 she was named a distinguished faculty member of the University of Florida. She was the Eleanor Clark Slagle Lecturer in 1973.
In 1976, she became head of the occupational therapy program at Colorado State University. She retired in 1978. In 1979, she received the OT Award of Merit from the American Occupational Therapy Association.

Publications

  • "Some Strengths of Occupational Therapy"
  • "A Prediction of Clinical Performance"
  • "The effects of response sets in questionnaire studies"
  • "Relative effectiveness of personality achievement and interest measures in the prediction of a performance criterion"
  • "Some characteristics of female occupational therapists, 1970"
  • ''Research: The practical approach for occupational therapy''

Personal life and legacy

Jantzen died in 1983, at her home in Columbia, Maryland, at the age of 65. the American Occupational Therapy Foundation established an Alice C. Jantzen Fellowship Fund in 1986. The University of Florida has an Alice C. Jantzen Fellowship Fund, established in 2008 in her memory. In 2017, to mark its 100th anniversary, the American Occupational Therapy Association named "100 Influential People" in the field, and Jantzen was one of those named.