Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences celebrates 100 years of history

From the theater stage of the Roaring Twenties to the twenty-first-century speech-language pathology clinic, Washington State University's Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences has evolved over the past century from an art to a science.

The department traces its roots to 1925, when Professor Maynard Lee Daggy, namesake for Daggy Hall, established WSU's first Department of Speech in the School of Fine Arts.

"We've been here since the beginning," said Professor Emerita Gail Chermak, who served as department chair from 1990 to 2021. "That longevity speaks volumes - not just about our value to the university and to the clinical communities we serve, but also about the value of an education in speech and hearing sciences."

A century of communication: From public speaking to patient care

Soon after arriving at WSU, Daggy reorganized the existing "oral expression" courses into three new units: Theatre Arts and Drama, Rhetoric and Communication Studies, and Communication Disorders, the latter being the forerunner of the modern Speech and Hearing Sciences department. The nascent field of "speech correction" coalesced into a national association in the same period, reflecting a growing interest in the topic.

"Speech is the most salient aspect of communication - it's what people notice first," said Professor Amy Meredith, chair from 2021 to 2025. "In the early days, an emphasis on elocution and 'correct speech' was a catalyst for our profession."

World War II brought more students to the school and accelerated the development of speech pathology as a distinct field of health care. In keeping with these shifts, the department's Communication Disorders unit began to adopt an increasingly clinical approach to addressing speech and language disorders and hired its first faculty trained in speech pathology.

Students gained hands-onexperience at the department's state-of-the-art Communication Disorders Clinic and later through a partnership with a private clinic in Spokane, which would grow into a regional hub for medical education and specialized health care. The program received accreditation by the mid-1970s, now granting master's degrees in speech pathology and audiology.

A new identity and academic expansion: Speech and Hearing Sciences

By the late 1980s, the speech department's more artistic and scientific units had diverged to the point of restructuring, with theatre and drama joining the School of Music and rhetoric and media courses migrating to what is now the Edward R. Murrow College of Communication.

In 1987, the department was renamed Speech and Hearing Sciences in recognition of the discipline's increasingly comprehensive approach to the science of human communication.

That same year, WSU and Eastern Washington University began a 35-yearpartnership to expand educational and research programming in health care fields in Spokane. Outgrowing Daggy Hall in Pullman, the department began to consolidate its programs at WSU's growing Spokane campus, training students in a variety of clinical settings in the surrounding city.

Joining the College of Medicine: new era, new possibilities

The most recent decade has marked a shift for the department and opened new opportunities for clinical and community initiatives.

In 2015, Speech and Hearing Sciences became the founding department of WSU's newly created Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine. After an itinerant path through WSU's administrative divisions, the department found its home alongside cutting-edge medical education and research to train speech-language pathologists and other professionals equipped to serve in an increasingly interprofessional health care landscape.

"Our colleagues in medicine understand us. We speak the same language," Chermak said. "Joining the College of Medicine allowed us to grow and collaborate more effectively across clinically focused disciplines."

The department now offers an array of academic programs that prepare students for impactful careers in clinical practice and research through community-based and on-campusclinical experiences. Faculty and students conduct research on communication disorders across the lifespan, from autism and neurodevelopmental disorders in infants to aging-related changes to speech and swallowing.

"As we celebrate 100 years of excellence, we're not just looking back - we're looking forward to the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead," said Associate Professor David Jenson, who took over as chair on July 7, 2025. "Our goal is to prepare the next generation of clinicians and researchers while continuing to evolve along with the needs of the communities we serve."