saveutasp.org - UT ASP Talking Points and Key Facts

This document responds to Bruce Bursten, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and his reasons/rationale for selecting Audiology and Speech Pathology for termination. Additionally, the present document also addresses a UT press release from June 11, 2008. This same information can be used in communications to all decision makers, particularly the Board of Trustees.

1. Impact on General Education

Dean Bursten: “Our considerations of where to make a focused budget cut led us to conclude that the phased closure of the Department of Audiology and Speech Pathology (ASP) was the most responsible way to absorb the mandated $1.375M base-budget cut while preserving the long-term health of the College of Arts and Sciences. ASP is the only department in the College that does not teach any General Education courses, and their course offerings have an impact on a very small number of other programs and majors”.

• The Department of Audiology and Speech Pathology (ASP) offers undergraduate coursework to majors as well as coursework required of students outside the College of Arts and Sciences. Approximately 20% of students enrolled in ASP undergraduate courses are from colleges other than Arts and Sciences.

• UT and Middle Tennessee State University are the only ASP undergraduate programs in the state of Tennessee that offer undergraduate preparation. There are approximately 114 students in the UT ASP undergraduate program and most go on to attend graduate school. Closing this program will negatively affect the supply of undergraduate students for other training programs and exacerbate the shortage of professionals in the field.

• The graduate program in ASP has received numerous honors and awards and is the largest in Arts and Sciences with a current enrollment of approximately 111 students. The rationale to close ASP to minimize the impact on general education course offerings will come at the cost of closing one the nation’s strongest ASP programs. Therefore, it is unclear how closing ASP preserves the long-term health of the University of Tennessee.

2. Lack of Association with ORNL/Medical School

Bursten: “We wanted to preserve our regional strategic advantages, especially the relationship with ORNL, which affects many of our departments but not ASP. Further, most of the topranked ASP programs are affiliated with a medical school, which facilitates research and student-training collaborations."

• The majority of the 25 departments in the College of Arts and Sciences do not have a relationship with ORNL. Additionally, there are no data to suggest that maintaining ASP will interfere with or negatively impact any regional strategic advantage provided by ORNL.

• Nationally, the majority (39%) of the top-ranked ASP programs are housed in Arts and Sciences, with 18% in Medical Schools, 14% College of Health and Professional Programs, 11% Social and Behavioral Sciences, 7.1% in school of Communication, 7.1% in school of Liberal Arts, and 3%- School of Audiology and Speech Pathology.

• The Department of ASP has synergistic and productive research and clinical relationships with the UT Medical Center, Children’s Hospital, local otolaryngologists, radiologists, and neurologists as well as collaborative relationships with Vanderbilt, and other ASP programs across the nation. Student–training and research collaborations are in no way affected by the lack of an on-site medical school.

3. Program Redundancy

Bursten: “The State of Tennessee also has graduate programs in ASP at the University of Memphis (which has an affiliated THEC Center of Excellence), Vanderbilt, and ETSU…” With the closure of ASP, the State will still have 3 of the 44 nationally ranked programs in Audiology, so it will be well served compared to other states. Also, because ETSU has graduate programs in both Audiology and Speech Pathology, Tennessee residents wishing to receive graduate training in these fields would have the opportunity to remain in East Tennessee.”

• According to the American Speech, Language and Hearing Association (ASHA) in a letter submitted to the Board of Trustees last week, terminating the program at UT-Knoxville would “exacerbate the shortage of speech-language pathologists and audiologists to competently meet the demands of individuals with communication disorders in the state of Tennessee . In addition the closure of this program would reduce the number of Ph.D. level graduates and further exacerbate the existing Ph.D. level shortage in communication sciences and disorders in the state of Tennessee as well as the nation.”

• The president of ASHA states “there is no duplication of effort across programs. Other training programs in the state (e.g., Vanderbilt, East Tennessee State, and Memphis) would not be able to accommodate UT students. This would effectively result in a net loss of opportunities for students to pursue education and training in both speech-language pathology and audiology in the state.” This assertion is supported by Department Heads at other departments in the state.

• According to ASHA, the Southeastern United States contains 59 Speech Pathology programs, 17 Audiology programs, and 12 Ph.D. programs in Speech and Hearing Science. The University of Tennessee program ranks among the best including: Vanderbilt, the University of Florida, the University of Memphis, and the University of North Carolina. Furthermore, only 6 programs in the Southeastern United States offer each degree program (Speech, Audiology, and Ph.D.) with three being in the state of Tennessee (Vanderbilt, Memphis , and Tennessee). Consequently, students from the region flock to ASP programs in the state of Tennessee due to the outstanding quality of the programs.

• The department’s clinics actively participate in the TENNCARE program which serves citizens who have no private insurance in east Tennessee. The department is a referral source for many physicians, private service providers, and public schools in the region and its closure would create gaps in both the quantity and quality of service available in a 25 county area of the state. Letters from concerned public and private practitioners attest to the fact that our patients will not be easily absorbed by the private sector.

Listed below are points made in the press release Wednesday June 11:

UT News release: The university found a 40-year-old real estate agreement that obligates the university to operate a Hearing and Speech Center through 2057

• The “Hearing and Speech Center” is an umbrella term that refers to four inter-related clinics: The Audiology Clinic, Child Hearing Services, The Pediatric Language Clinic, and an outpatient Speech and Language Clinic. The Speech and Language clinic is the only one located in the Silverstein-Luper building on Peyton Manning Pass. The primary purpose of these clinics is to serve as a teaching and research laboratory for graduate students and faculty in the Department of Audiology and Speech-Language Pathology.

UT News release: the university is continuing its plans to eliminate the academic program

• The plan to eliminate the academic degree granting program and maintain the Hearing and Speech Center is unworkable for several reasons:

1) Without students to provide assessment and treatment services, the clinic becomes a freestanding service provider. The role of the Center is to prepare high quality clinicians to work in professional settings. Its purpose has never been to compete with private practitioners. It is the Center’s direct connection to teaching and research that allows it to provide the highest quality of assessment and treatment services to all of our clients in the community. In other words, the teaching and research that are provided by the Department of Audiology and Speech Pathology are inseparable from the clinical services.

2) Under state law, University speech and hearing clinics require students to conduct hearing aid assessments and fittings so that there is no conflict with private practitioners. Hence, without students to provide these services, a substantial component of the audiology clinic would not be able to serve the public as it does currently.

In summary, the Department of Audiology and Speech Pathology serves a critical need in the region and the state. It provides important professional preparation to students at the University of Tennessee and to professionals in the community through continuing educational offerings. In addition, the departmental clinics serve as research and teaching laboratories and offer the benefit of a much needed public service to the east Tennessee community. Overall, the Department of Audiology and Speech Pathology is a resource within our community and both the community, and the state of Tennessee, will suffer long term consequences if the Department of Audiology and Speech Pathology is terminated.

* * * More Key Facts * * *

The Department of Audiology and Speech Pathology is the largest program in the state and awards 6 degrees: (B.A. in Audiology, B.A. in Speech Pathology; M.A. in Speech Language Pathology; M.A. in Audiology; Au.D. Doctor of Audiology; Ph.D. in Hearing Science). No other school in the University of Tennessee system offers these degrees. There are severe shortages of audiologists and speech pathologists in Tennessee and this program provides an essential resource for the state. Currently, there are 110 undergraduates in the major, 59 M.A. students in speech-language pathology, 40 Au.D. students, and 16 Ph.D. students.

The Department of Audiology and Speech Pathology recruits top quality applicants from Tennessee and out of state. The undergraduate program is rapidly increasing in size even though it requires a B average or better for admission. Graduate applications are also increasing and the department averages almost 200 graduate applications per year.

State of the art student education is provided, including a specialty concentration in aural rehabilitation for graduate students in audiology and speech pathology. The aural rehabilitation concentration helps supply the state with specialists who are able to work with hearing impaired children. This need and the excellence of the UT program was recognized by the United States Department of Education which provides $250,000 per year as part of a grant to support student training in this area.

In both Audiology and Speech Pathology, graduate students have a 100% employment rate at graduation.

The Department of Audiology and Speech Pathology has one of the largest graduate programs in the College (if not the largest) and has a large percentage of female graduates with M.A. and doctoral degrees.

Across the country, there are acute shortages of Audiologists and Speech Pathologists. In the state of Tennessee, the need is felt even in well populated areas like Knox County with even greater shortages in rural areas. The need is great in the public schools as well as in hospitals and clinics. There is no program duplication – in fact the programs across the state cooperate because there is no need to compete for students. The number of applications is greater than the number of spaces available. The 100% employment rate at graduation demonstrates that the demand exceeds the supply.

Three programs are nationally ranked in the College of Arts and Sciences – Audiology, Speech Pathology, and Art.

The Department provides cutting edge research that is guiding diagnosis and treatment in the field. In the past 5 years, faculty have numerous national awards for outstanding articles, outstanding research and one entire issue of a major national journal was devoted to UT esearch. Funding is being provided by the hearing aid industry, the Department of Education, and the two primary national organizations in the discipline.

Faculty scholarship is recognized internationally and has resulted in numerous invitations for editorships, peer-reviews, grant-reviews, seminars, and research presentations.

Students in the department have received awards for their research. In fact, the Department of Audiology is the only department in the country with students winning awards for three years in a row at the American Academy of Audiology annual conference. In the last 5 years, the National Institutes of Health has awarded funding for research to students and faculty.

As a member of the community our student training programs contribute back in the following ways:

Over 2500 patients served by our students within our clinics in the last 14 months
Over 17,000 assessment or treatment services in the last 14 months
Patient base represents 25 different counties in surrounding areas
Over 500 medical personnel refer patients to us
Service to indigent populations (38% on TENNCARE) who are at risk for getting the services they need for 2 reasons. First, many services are highly specialized e.g., pediatric audiology and treatment services for young hearing-impaired children. Second, few service providers accept TENNCARE patients.
Contracts with 9 different county school systems to serve children with hearing impairments
Service to a diverse population including families who do not speak English as a primary language
Service to patients in local hospitals and clinics through practicum placements
In-service training to teachers and speech-language pathologists in the state of Tennessee on cutting edge techniques