Practitioners in audiology and speech-language pathology diagnose and treat individuals from all racial and ethnic backgrounds. However, professionals in those fields are primarily a homogeneous group. According to the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA), about 9% of ASHA members and affiliates self-identified as racially minoritized groups in 2022. The race discrepancy between providers and patients has been a long-discussed topic but has yet to change. ASHA recently announced in their 2024 Public Policy Agenda that one of their priorities this year is to “enhance efforts to help address the shortage of practitioners by expanding opportunities to grow and diversify the audiology and speech-language pathology workforce.” The Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders has taken strides to start addressing this issue through the Academic Recruitment Program (ARP) through the CSD “CSD4Me” campaign.
CSD has been awarded two Provost Innovation & Enhancement (PIE) grants to support its efforts to increase enrollment and recruit a diverse student body more representative of the individuals receiving audiology and speech-language pathology services. This ARP was created to educate precollegiate students about the field and professions to increase awareness and spark interest in prospective future clinicians. Spearheaded by Dr. McLoddy Kadyamusuma and Dr. Anthony Joseph, the ARP has been student-driven in the past two years, with many undergraduate and graduate students central to its achievements. The graduate assistants were central in developing the marketing materials and presentations. The CSD4Me team has been actively involved in publicizing and marketing the CSD major, SLP, and AuD graduate programs in high schools, community colleges, career fairs, social media, and on-campus networking events. Through the Student Ambassadors program, several undergraduate and graduate students in the department have taken their passion to their hometown high school to help students improve their understanding of communication sciences and disorders.
About 2500 students have physically encountered either a student ambassador or CSD4Me team member, and thousands have been reached through our social media campaigns. CSD4Me team plans to continue educating students about audiology and speech-language pathology in alignment with the department’s goal to recruit and retain academically talented, diverse, and highly motivated students.
Please contact the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders if you or someone you know would like more information about this program.
