From the Director’s Desk

Mark Guiberson, PhD, CCC-SLP Summer 2021

Hit me with your best shot! Division Director Mark Guiberson receives his second vaccination shot.

Greetings from the Division of Communication Disorders! The past year certainly has included a fair share of challenges, but we are turning the corner.

You’ll see we’ve had a very active year despite the pandemic. We had 1,956 speech “tele-practice” visits, and 594 in-person audiology visits. Our Speech Clinic opened for face-to-face services again in June and we were fully booked! We’ve had 198 speech face-to-face visits in June and July alone. I report some of this information in “ComDis1 by the Numbers.” You’ll also see that our research faculty maintained productivity in publications and grant writing, and we even had student publication in peer reviewed journals.

We thank our alumni for the generous support you all give us. Three gifts are highlighted in this newsletter. Maggie and Dick Scarlett have funded a position, the Maggie and Dick Scarlett Excellence Chair in SpeechLanguage Pathology. Marisa Yagi established the Yagi Multicultural Scholarship in Communications Disorders, a very important gift that will help us recruit more students from a variety of backgrounds into the discipline. Thom Flamboe established the Dr. Thom and Terry Flamboe Graduate Fellowship in Speech-Language Pathology, a wonderful fellowship opportunity that will support graduate students. All three gifts and donors are highlight further in this newsletter. We thank all of our donors, every gift counts!

This summer we said good byes to Erin Page who will return to work as a service provider, and Roger Steeve who is retiring. We thank both for their hard work at UW over the years. We include a story on Davey Hough, alum of the program, and his career and retirement. Congratulations to all!

As I write this, we are preparing for the 2021-22 school year. We have a full cohort of 17 MS SLP “first years” and over 120 students enrolled in undergraduate classes. We also have expanded our ASL courses to include online classes, the American Sign Language Studies certificate and related classes are thriving thanks to Esther Hartsky and our other instructors.

As the pandemic blows over, we hope to never see anything of the sort again. We also hope you and your family and communities are well. Most of all, we hope to see you and hear from you! If you know of an alums’ success or stories share them with us. We love our ComDis family. If you’re in town, or if you’re thinking of taking an MS SLP intern, let us know! We’d love to visit.

1 ComDis = Division of Communication Disorders at UW.

At your service! From left, Heidi Clark, Assistant Clinical Professor, Corri Sandoval, Speech Clinic Director and Heather Malek, Office Associate, Senior, with the UW Speech and Hearing Clinic stand ready to assist the needs of all patients entering the clinic. To learn more and to make your appointment, please visit: www.uwyo.edu/comdis/uw-speech-and-hearing-clinic/. Or send us an email to comdis@uwyo.edu