RU COSD family gathers for homecoming celebration

Alumni, faculty and students will celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Radford University Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders (COSD) on Saturday, Oct. 11.

The celebration will feature a dinner/dance in the COBE Multipurpose Room at 6 p.m. and is part of the 2014 RU Homecoming festivities.

To commemorate the master's program that started in 1974 as part of the speech and theatre department in Porterfield Hall, Founding Chair James Nicely will be honored. Nicely developed the department's curriculum in speech-language pathology and audiology and was instrumental in the program's initial accreditation by the American Speech-Language and Hearing Association.

Currently over 60 graduate students and undergraduates are served by 12 faculty and the program is housed in the Waldron College of Health and Human Services on the first floor of Waldron Hall. More than 1200 graduate and undergraduate students are now working in the field across the United States and in South America.

"Looking back at the profession's evolution over the past 40 years, it is amazing how the scope of speech language pathologists' work has expanded. I am so proud of the classes of students I have seen progress through our program over the past ten years," said COSD Chair Diane Millar. "Dr. Nicely's groundbreaking work is central to everything we are doing here now and we look forward to paying tribute to him and the contributions of so many others who helped the department and its students."

Nicely will be joined by former COSD chairs Raymond Linville and Ken Cox at the event which will feature entertainment by COSD alumnus Emily Guill '09 and the band Lil' Sum'n Sum'n.

The dinner is part of a COSD initiative to match a $10,000 anonymous challenge gift to endow the James E. Nicely Scholarship for Graduate Study in Communication Sciences and Disorders.

To reserve seats ($40 per person) for the COSD 40th Anniversary Celebration or make a gift to the Nicely Scholarship effort, contact Jennifer White in University Advancement at jwhite26@radford.edu or (540) 831-5407.

For more information on the event, contact Teresa Whitt at twhitt@radford.edu or (540) 831-7735.