We are very proud of the collective accomplishments of our department. We thank all of our friends, alumni, faculty, staff, and students for your participation and support of our program.

Along with our successes we face new challenges. Many people are surprised to learn that in 1970, public funds met 40% of our budget needs as a university – today this figure is down to 14%, and the trend seems set to continue. We call on our alumni and friends to make a difference. We cannot maintain excellence without your involvement of time, talent, and financial support.

Your gifts make an incredible difference to us. For example, $50 sponsors one Fireside Chat; $200 provides printing support for the SPHSC Department Undergraduate Honors program; $700 enables a graduate student to present a paper at a national professional conference; $2500 provides one quarter of in-state graduate tuition; and $25,000 provides one student with a graduate teaching assistantship for one academic year. We invite you to follow the link below to renew your support of our mission. We hope you do so knowing that your generosity is deeply appreciated.

  
Drs. Lesley & Steven Olswang

The Lesley B. and Steven G. Olswang Endowed Graduate Student Conference Fund

The Lesley B. and Steven G. Olswang Endowment supports graduate students from the Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences to prepare and present original research at national and international conferences. The Olswang fund is to support students’ efforts in developing scholarly materials, and to assist them with travel costs and/or conference registration fees associated with research presentations. Prior to this endowment, funding for this critical aspect of student development was quite limited. Supporting graduate students in presenting research discoveries at national and international conferences is an essential element of students’ academic preparation. This fund was designed to support the Department’s student researchers as they establish themselves as the next generation of influential scholars and clinical professionals. The Graduate Student Conference Fund was established by the Olswangs in appreciation for Lesley’s recognition as the university’s 2005 Marsha L. Landolt Distinguished Graduate Mentor. Dr. Steven Olswang has also been strong advocate for the department in his role as Vice Provost for Academic Affairs at the University of Washington. Steven is currently the Interim Chancellor at the UW-Bothell.

Lesley Olswang, Ph.D., Professor of Speech and Hearing Sciences, is a master teacher whose intellect and wisdom have been cherished and modeled by students in our Department for nearly three decades. Dr. Olswang is the quintessential clinical researcher whose passion and respect for the acquisition of knowledge have improved the quality of life for countless children with communication disorders and their families.

Lesley joined the department in 1978 after receiving her Ph.D. in Speech and Hearing Sciences from the University of Washington. In 1983, Lesley’s innovative, energetic and insightful teaching style garnered the University of Washington’s Distinguished Teaching Award. In 2005, the university again recognized Lesley’s excellence in teaching when she received the Marsha L. Landolt Distinguished Graduate Mentor Award
.
Lesley is a powerful and influential researcher. She is a Fulbright Scholar, ASHA Fellow and a Research Affiliate of the Center on Human Development and Disability and the Virginia Merrill Bloedel Hearing Center. She has twice won the Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools Editor’s Award for the article of highest merit. In 1995, she and former doctoral student, Dr. Barbara Bain, also won the Editor’s Award for the article of highest merit in the American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology. Lesley has directly and tangibly affected our discipline’s understanding of the treatment process when she edited Treatment Efficacy Research in Communication Disorders (with Cynthia Thompson, Steven Warren and Nancy Minghetti). Her current research interests focus on two cutting-edge issues: development of early signals of communication in infants, and social communication deficits in school-age children.

We invite you to add your support to the Olswang Endowment!

The Fred and Barbara Minifie Endowed Graduate Fund

Fred Minifie, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of Speech and Hearing Sciences, has been one of the major architects of our department. Coming to the department in 1971, he served the UW for 29 years, including eleven years as Department Chair. Since his retirement in 1998, Fred has remained one of the department’s greatest supporters, serving on the Advisory Board and continuing to represent Speech and Hearing with the American Speech-Language-Hearing Foundation. Fred has built the foundation for many successful careers, first as a professor at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, then at the University of Washington. Perhaps his most widespread influence has come from his authorship (with Hixon and Williams) of the seminal textbook, “Normal Aspects of Speech, Hearing, and Language.”

Dr. Minifie’s contributions have been widely recognized with many honors and awards, including most notably the Honors of the Association, awarded by the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association in 1990, the 2000 Golden Ear Drum Award by the Virginia Merrill Bloedel Hearing Research Center, and as the Outstanding Graduate from the University of Iowa, Department of Speech Pathology and Audiology. As President of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association in 1983, Fred directed this enormous organization through one of its most formative periods. He continues to serve as an advisor to the Association on matters of scientific integrity.

Most recently, Fred and Barbara Minifie have established the Fred and Barbara Minifie Endowed Graduate Fund. This endowment is dedicated to the support of graduate education in speech and hearing. This source of desperately needed support continues to grow as friends and former students of Fred and Barbara contribute their support in honor of Fred’s distinguished career. The students and faculty of the department are extremely grateful for Fred’s continued guidance and support of UW Speech and Hearing Sciences.

Help us to commemorate Fred’s enormous contribution to our department with your support of the Fred and Barbara Minifie Endowed Graduate Fund.
      

Dr. Jack Palmer

Jack Palmer Endowed Graduate Fund
  
Recently, SPHSC Lecturer Martin Nevdahl and his wife Terri established an endowment in memory of Dr. John M. (Jack) Palmer, Professor Emeritus of Speech and Hearing Sciences and of Prosthodontics at the University of Washington. Jack Palmer, who was one of the most beloved professors to have ever taught at the University of Washington, passed away almost a decade ago (on April 26, 1996).

Jack began undergraduate studies at Central Washington College of Education in 1940. He transferred to the University of Washington in 1942. Following service in World War II, he completed bachelors and masters degrees at the University of Washington. He earned his doctorate at the University of Michigan in 1952 and immediately was hired by the University of Washington. Jack Palmer held clinical certification in both speech-language pathology and in audiology. It is noteworthy that he spent his entire academic life at the University of Washington until his retirement in 1992. In that 40-year period he inspired hundreds of students as an outstanding teacher, clinician, counselor and role model.

Dr. Palmer taught a wide range of courses in both speech and hearing throughout his career. He will be long remembered for his infectious enthusiasm in introducing the professions of speech-language pathology and audiology to his students at the undergraduate level. Jack was particularly interested in the anatomy of the speech and hearing mechanisms. His text, Anatomy for Speech and Hearing, was in its 4th edition and was considered a classic in the field at the time of his death. Dr. Palmer established a laboratory in the Department of Anatomy for student dissection of anatomic material - an elective course providing a unique learning experience enjoyed by many students over the years. Jack was so enthusiastic about this aspect of student education that after his retirement he continued to offer the course without compensation until shortly before his death.

He loved trading silly jokes with his students. For example, he would tell the story of a woman who was shot. He would inform the students that "the bullet was in her yet." He would then want the students to identify the anatomical location of the "yet."

Another of Jack Palmer's professional interests was in the area of maxillofacial disorders. He served for many years as a member of the cleft palate team and helped speech pathology students appreciate the clinical implications of maxillofacial disorders.

Dr. Palmer served the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association in a number of capacities, and was elected to Fellowship in 1965. He was President of the Washington Speech and Hearing Association in 1963. He served as a professional consultant to a number of local and state agencies serving the communicatively impaired.

The endowment established in memory of Dr. Jack Palmer will elicit an approving smile and a nod of appreciation from many alumni. This gift ensures that future SPHSC students will continue to benefit from Dr. Palmer’s devotion to Speech and Hearing Sciences, and that they will appreciate this dedicated teacher-clinician, a true friend and role model to SPHSC faculty and students alike. His was a life well lived.
We welcome your support to the Palmer Endowment!

The Yantis Endowment

The Yantis Endowment was established in the memory of Philip A. Yantis, beloved Professor Emeritus of Audiology in the Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences. From 1967 to 1975, Phil served as Director of the Program in Speech Pathology and Audiology within the Department of Speech and Rhetoric. In 1975, under Phil’s leadership as program director, that program in Speech Pathology and Audiology achieved full departmental status within the College of Arts and Sciences and continues today as one of the top-ranked departments in the U.S.

Phil grew up in Washington near Olympia and earned his B.A. at the University of Washington in 1950. He went on to earn his Ph.D. at the University of Michigan in 1955. During his student days at Michigan and for several years after, Phil worked in the prestigious Physiologic Acoustics Laboratory with Merle Lawrence and together they discovered the auditory phenomenon of aural harmonics. Phil also taught at U.M. and served as the Director of Audiology at U.M.’s Medical School. After a stint at Case Western University as professor and Director of Audiology at the Cleveland Speech and Hearing Center, Phil arrived in Seattle in 1965 as the sole audiologist in the Program of Speech Pathology and Audiology. He was the consummate audiology professor – he taught every course and supervised all graduate research! During that time he also was Director of Audiology at Children’s Orthopedic Hospital as well as attending audiologist at the University of Washington Hospital. From 1967, Phil became the director of UW’s Program of Speech Pathology and Audiology until its transition to department status in 1975.

Phil devoted a significant part of his professional career to the service of the American Speech Language Hearing Association (ASHA). He chaired many committees in the Association including his landmark work in the development of clinical certification requirements in audiology through his work as chair of the Committee on Clinical Certification. This committee not only developed the requirements and procedures for certification, but also oversaw their implementation. In 1969 he was elected to a three-year term as Vice President for Planning. In 1974, Phil was chosen to be president elect and then served as president of ASHA for 1975. Later, he served as editor of Journal of Speech and Hearing Research. He was elected a Fellow of ASHA in 1969 and subsequently received the Association’s highest award, Honors of the Association, in 1987.

One of Phil’s most significant accomplishments was in 1954 when he met, and later married, Ellie, his wife of nearly 50 years. Upon Phil’s untimely death in 2003, Ellie established a generous endowment, the Yantis Endowment, to further graduate education in audiology at the University of Washington. Throughout their lives in Seattle, Ellie and Phil shared a passionate interest in communication disorders; she as the Director of Speech and Hearing Services in the Edmonds schools and he with all his work at the UW. Their common passion for clinical services to children and clinical education of university students led Ellie to richly endow the Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences in Phil’s memory.
   
Please help commemorate Phil's rich legacy by supporting the Yantis Endoment.