(FROM SHERIDAN COLLEGE REPORTS)
Diane Redman is lively and wise. She is eager to connect, teach and learn.
Redman has practiced massage therapy for 35 years, and, for the better part of two decades, she has brought passion and knowledge into the classrooms at Sheridan College.
“I love my job and I love the college, the environment, the vitality, the creativity,” she said. “We have so much going on here. We have amazing faculty and staff. As it relates to my discipline, I am passionate about the field of massage therapy and that ignites a fire that I then bring to the students.”
Redman, director of the only massage therapy program at a Wyoming public college, developed the curriculum in 1999, after years of offering noncredit courses for the community.
Each of the past 15 graduating classes are linked, with their colorful handprints accenting the walls of the massage therapy room in the Whitney building’s Health Science wing.
“I like to cultivate and create an environment where we mutually learn because I learn from my students every year, every class,” Redman said. “That information gets passed to the next generation of students at Sheridan College.”
Sheridan College massage therapy director Diane Redman, left, and SC student Alexander Hokanson of Newcastle, practice massage techniques on student Kathleen Troy of Wheatland.
DREAMS COME TRUE
Redman thrived as a massage therapist in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She traveled with professional sports teams and ballet companies, and owned a massage therapy business. While giving a massage one day, a client asked her hopes and dreams. To live on a ranch and to open a massage therapy school, she said.
A year later, that client’s connections brought Redman to the HF Bar Ranch in Sheridan. She fell in love with Wyoming. Another year passed and she moved to Sheridan full-time, pioneering massage therapy classes at Sheridan College. That was 20 years ago.
The classes were noncredit, community education courses, before becoming three-credit, ‘special topics’ courses.
“After running it for two years as a ‘topics’ class, I was then working on a curriculum and got the green-light that the college was interested in having a certificate program,” Redman said. “We offered the certificate for a few years and then added the Associate of Applied Science degree.”
OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
When the variety of massage therapy classes are not filled by program students, they are open to the community, such as Relaxation Techniques. There are openings in the upcoming spring semester courses, which start Wednesday, Jan 21.
“We cover pretty much everything under the umbrella of relaxation,” Redman said. “We cover breathing techniques, meditation, guided imagery, autogenic training and progressive muscle relaxation.”
Relaxation Techniques will meet Mondays and Wednesdays, from 3:30-4:50 p.m.
“For someone in the community who is stressed or is having trouble sleeping or they have pain in an area in the body, they can apply the skills they learn,” she said.
The community is also welcome to explore Supplemental Modalities II, taught by Traci Wilson, a local acupuncturist. The class will meet Mondays and Wednesdays, 9-10:20 a.m., with a clinical component on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 5-7:30 p.m.
“The course is a great way for someone to say, ‘I’m thinking about this field and whether or not I am interested in working with people in a way that aids their wellbeing, health and healing,’” Redman said.
Redman takes a comprehensive approach to massage therapy education. Degree-seeking students enroll in everything from Techniques to Ergonomics to Communication, Ethics and Business Application, where students learn what it takes to run a business independently.
Sheridan College massage therapy students Laura Ross of Veteran, left, and Angel Tapia of Rock Springs, practice massage techniques on fellow student Jennifer Berg of Casper.
GIVING BACK
Throughout the spring, massage therapy students offer massages in a clinical setting to Sheridan College employees and community members. They also routinely visit local businesses and organizations, such as Sheridan County Public Health and Wyoming Army National Guard Armory, to offer free massages to employees.
“Clinic time allowed me to find the niche I was looking for in massage,” said 2014 graduate Kara Bacon. “I found gainful employment here, thanks to my certificate and degree from Sheridan College, and the hands-on education I received.”
Redman said her students embrace the philosophy, going ‘above and beyond’ to enrich their communities.
“Personally, I think that all of us need to be good stewards and we need to give in service to humanity in some way, shape or form,” Redman said.
“I want all massage therapy students to know when they graduate that they have that mindset of, ‘I’m asking this community to support me, to come to me, to my practice. Then, I need to give to my community and be involved in my community.’”
THE BEST PART
Of Redman’s 15 graduating classes, many students have gone on to work for chiropractors, salons, spas and private practice. Some have used massage therapy as a foundation into physical therapy or nursing.
Bacon, a Sheridan native, is one of many Sheridan College graduates working in the region. She is a massage therapist at Zen the Salon on Coffeen Avenue in Sheridan. She was hired two months prior to graduation in May.
“The off-campus rotations gave me courage in my massage abilities as well as in myself that I was lacking from my previous career and education,” Bacon said.
Such diversity makes Redman smile.
“For me, the best part of the job is the variety. I worked and traveled with professional hockey and soccer teams and the Milwaukee Ballet Company,” she said. “I also had the first hospital-based practice in Milwaukee. I loved working with that population of people who were rehabbing from injury.
“I got to see a lot of different people. It’s the variety of people who make this field a vocation. It’s not really a job. It’s wonderful.”
(PHOTO CREDITS: KARA BACON)
