Discovery & Engagement Discovery & Engagement

LIBERAL ARTS MAGAZINE Spring 2004
8
DISCOVERY & ENGAGEMENT in the School of Liberal Arts
BY GRANT A. FLORA
The basement of Heavilon Hall is pin-drop quiet.
Ironically, this setting is home to one of the more
visible and acclaimed examples of ever-new learning
and discovery merging with public engagement in the
School of Liberal Arts—and the University. The M. D.
Steer Audiology and Speech-Language Pathology Clinics
epitomize the community outreach component of the
School’s strategic mission. The clinics serve individual
clients with communication needs in the Greater
Lafayette area, surrounding counties, and the Purdue community
by providing an array of diagnostic and rehabilitative
services. Staff and student clinicians also work with
community service programs such as Greater Lafayette
Area Special Services, First Steps–Indiana Children’s
Special Health Care Services, the Indiana Veteran’s Home,
and two long-term nursing facilities, Regency Place of
Lafayette and Rosewalk Village.
“Collaboration with the community gives our students
real-world experience,” says Robert Novak, clinical professor
of audiology and director of clinical education in audiology
at Purdue. Novak says research shares a major role
with learning and public outreach when discoveries in the
department find application for patient treatment in the
clinics.
This year, 14 of the department’s 21 faculty members
are conducting sponsored research in speech and hearing
science, linguistics, speech-language pathologies, and audiology—including
child language development, brain
mechanisms underlying language processing, neurophysiological
bases of speech motor control, linguistics of
American Sign Language, infant speech/language development,
speech perception, and basic mechanisms of hearing.
These discovery efforts often lead to effective
intervention, prevention, and rehabilitation efforts through
the clinics.
Jessica Huber, one of the department’s newest faculty
members, uses research techniques to improve patients’
clinical care. The assistant professor’s work focuses on the
physiology of speech production, particularly in individuals
with Parkinson’s disease. Huber studies ways to improve
audibility and articulation in Parkinson’s patients, which
will in turn apply to therapy goals both here and in any
other therapeutic environment. “I also work closely with
our clinic using research techniques to further develop
clients’ therapy goals,” Huber says. “I think the clinics
represent a great model of
how outreach and research
go together.”
Lata Krishnan, director of
the audiology clinic, prepares
to test the hearing of Conner
Allen, an infant from the
community.
Sound
Bridget M. Walsh, a graduate research assistant working
toward a doctoral degree in neuroscience, augments
her own classes, teaching, and research duties by seeing
clients in the speech-language clinic. She works in a mutually
beneficial collaboration with her supervising speechlanguage
pathologist, Joanne Gutek. “Having a solid
clinical background, by observation and contact with clinical
populations, helps shape our research questions,”
Walsh says. This in turn will help future clinicians design,
establish, and employ research-oriented advancements in
therapy effectively, she adds. In this way, the clinics can