Little Acorn to Great Oak
At 3 p.m. every Tuesday and Thursday, eager learners fill the second floor of the : students, yes, but not your typical undergrads.
bodyimage1These students are adults of all ages participating in , a practicum hosted by the , a division of the .
Bob, who is in his second year of attending the clinic, struggles to find the right words to express what he is thinking. 鈥淵ou know what you want to say, but you can鈥檛 find the right words?鈥 asks student clinician Hanna Lambers. Bob nods. The Calvin students continue their assessment of Bob, pointing at various objects around the room and asking Bob what they are. 鈥溾 Spoon 鈥 faucet 鈥 sink 鈥 watch,鈥 he responds, after some thinking.
Helping find the words
Still, he鈥檚 frustrated: 鈥淚 can鈥檛 say anything,鈥 he says, haltingly. 鈥淵ou want to be able to talk to people?鈥 asks Lambers. Bob nods. 鈥淭hen let鈥檚 work on that. Can you say, 鈥楬i, how are you?鈥欌 Bob repeats the question with a smile.
The opportunity to work with real clients is so welcome, according to senior Elise Visbeen. 鈥淛ust being on the other side of the table is exciting,鈥 she said. 鈥淪eeing and understanding what we鈥檝e been learning in class is a great experience.鈥
鈥淲e are clinicians, now,鈥 added senior Erin Laarman. 鈥淭his is my first experience with clients, and it鈥檚 really exciting to see that I have the knowledge to pull together the tasks and treatments that are going to help my clients.鈥
The stroke clinic, a rarity at undergraduate institutions, has been the students鈥 only sustained opportunity to work with clients鈥攂ut that is about to change. The addition of a master鈥檚 program in speech pathology and audiology, , will mean augmenting the program with
The clinical additions, along with more upper-level classes, will provide students with the opportunity to earn a master鈥檚 in just five years, pending accreditation approval (anticipated early next year) by the of the . The new program will also require staff additions to professors Vander Woude and ; , who first envisioned the stroke clinic, will continue as the clinical director.
The addition of a master鈥檚 program indicates that speech pathology at Calvin is
In 1992, faced with budget cuts and the impending retirement of professor Marten Vande Guchte, the program鈥檚 founder, the administration figured it was the appropriate time to make a break. The speech pathology students thought otherwise. Donning Calvin T-shirts supporting their major, they 鈥減icketed鈥 the faculty, encouraging them to vote in support of keeping the program. And it worked.
鈥淚 think the administration was thinking, 鈥楾hat was a good try for the last 38, 39 years; now, let鈥檚 be done with it,鈥 said professor . 鈥淭he students saved the program.鈥
Program on the move
Since then, the program has grown, topping out at 99 majors this year. 鈥淲hen I heard there were more than 90 majors I thought, 鈥榃ow, that is unbelievable.鈥 I鈥檓 thrilled about it,鈥 said Vande Guchte. 鈥淲hat do they say? From a little acorn a great oak grows.鈥
Vande Guchte spent nearly four decades teaching at Calvin, starting the communication disorders鈥攐r speech pathology, as it is now called鈥攑rogram with just one class: 鈥淪peech Correction.鈥 It grew to a full major: a three-year program at Calvin finishing at .
In 1994, Vander Woude was hired to keep the program growing. 鈥淲hen I came in there were four or five majors, and I remember thinking, 鈥極h my word! How am I going to do this?鈥欌
Part of her plan was to increase the program to four years at Calvin. 鈥淪tudents didn鈥檛 like having to leave for their senior year,鈥 said Vander Woude.
The change was made in 1996, along with the addition of the , which offered hands-on experience for the students.
鈥淲e talked to people in the community, and the word we got back was that stroke patients didn鈥檛 have enough support in the community,鈥 said Vander Woude. 鈥淢ost insurance only covers 60 days of therapy. We wanted what we were doing to be of benefit to the community as well as our students.鈥
, the program鈥檚 clinical director, was the impetus behind the stroke clinic and will head up the future clinics as well.
Steady growth in the program and completion of the in 2002 allowed Vander Woude to start envisioning a master鈥檚 program. 鈥淚 think people wondered why the college was willing to make the investment in this program,鈥 said Vander Woude. 鈥淚t comes down to this: a commitment to our students that when they leave Calvin they can work in the field. It鈥檚 similar to the CPA program that we offer: You need certification before you can get a job.鈥
Six semesters
A master鈥檚 is required for a position as a speech pathologist, and, commonly, it is a two-year advanced-degree program. Calvin鈥檚 new program will be a six-semester sequence, beginning in the senior year, and will include two summers, allowing students to complete the requirements for both a bachelor鈥檚 and master鈥檚 in five years.
Junior Carrie Plantinga plans to continue through the five-year program. 鈥淚鈥檓 definitely glad about it (the master鈥檚 program),鈥 she said. 鈥淚t means that I can stay at a school that I already know, and I don鈥檛 have to apply to other graduate programs. I know that can be pretty stressful, and graduate programs are very competitive to get in to.鈥
Likewise for sophomore Lindsey Holtrop: 鈥淚 love the program at Calvin. I thought I wanted to be a so I looked at that, and I also looked at . Speech pathology seems like a really good combination of the two things I鈥檓 interested in. I love the fact that faith is incorporated into my classes, and staying at Calvin means that I will be able to do clinical work and observation from a Christian standpoint. 鈥
And that鈥檚 something that makes Calvin distinctive, according to Vander Woude: 鈥淭he most exciting piece is that we can actually talk about some serious faith issues all the way through this program. We鈥檝e developed themes of justice, poverty, end-of-life issues that we鈥檝e put into the capstone course so that students walk out of here having thought pretty seriously about how they see themselves as Christian speech pathologists. There鈥檚 not another program in the U.S. that does that all the way through."