Department of Audiology and Speech Sciences (1966- ) Department of Speech, Dramatics, and Radio Education (1937-1966)

Record Group

Identifier: UA-16.17

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

Note that the Department of Audiology and Speech is a medical sciences department. There was a department of Speech, Dramatics, and Radio Education until 1966. This department taught subjects related to performing arts and communication arts.

The collection of the department of Audiology and Speech Sciences consists of various reports on topics related to audiology, including one titled “Noise: The Acoustical Pollutant,” pamphlets on course offerings and study abroad programs, newsletters for alumni of the department.

The collection for Speech, Dramatics, and Radio Education includes faculty files for the period that the department was active in dramatics (theater) and radio broadcasting, information on the “Children’s Theatre Institute,” part of a course for students interested in studying the techniques of staging children’s plays.

The collection also includes unpublished annual reports for 1958 - 1969.

Dates

1939 - 1997

Conditions Governing Access

Collection is open for research.

Conditions Governing Use

Some materials in this collection are access only and restricted from copying or digital imaging.

Permission to publish material from this collection must be obtained from University Archives & Historical Collections, Michigan State University.

Historical Note

The Department of Speech, Dramatics and Radio Education combined multiple diciplines in its early years. In particular it focused on the performing arts (theater) and radio broadcasting. The faculty files included here reflect the work was done in these areas in the 1950s- 1966.

In 1967, the Department of Audiology and Speech Sciences was created in the then recently established College of Communication Arts and Sciences. Over the course of the next decades it grew in enrollment, course offerings, and faculty. It developed a separate undergraduate major, with ensuing separate master’s and doctoral degrees in speech(-language) pathology, audiology, and speech and hearing sciences. The Department gained national accreditation from the American Speech(-Language)- Hearing Association for its graduate professional degrees in speech(-language) pathology and audiology. By 1970, a master’s degree was looked upon nationally as the entry-level professional degree for the professions. Further major programmatic shifts occurred in 21st Century, with the Department changing its name to Communicative Sciences and Disorders in 2006, and transitioning to a speech-language pathology, graduate-only program in 2010.

The speech pathology courses began as one of an interest area in “speech correction” in 1937 as part of the Department of Speech and Drama at Michigan State College. It consisted of a single faculty member with interests in speech correction.