Ms. Spear founded the School of Occupational Therapy at the Kalamazoo State Hospital in 1922, one of the five original such schools in the United States.
In 1944, the school moved to WMU as a department which she headed until her retirement in 1958.
Under her leadership, the department offered one of the first graduate programs in the country. Ms. Spear, a graduate student at WMU in the 940s, received the National Award of Merit from the American Occupational Therapy Association in 1960.