2008 Marks Forty Years of Graduate Education
in Communication Sciences and Disorders

Initiated through a federal Office Of Education grant in 1968, the graduate program in Communication Sciences and Disorders (COMD) at the University of South Carolina accepted its first students for the Master of Education degree in 1969 and graduated its first student in 1970. There were only two faculty members, five full-time students, and fifteen part-time students in the program. In the early 1970s, COMD became a freestanding department within the Division of Associated Health Programs. The Department was one of the first in the nation to offer the professional degrees, Master of Speech Pathology (MSP) and Master of Audiology (MAud).

As the University developed a School of Public Health (now the Arnold School of Public Health), COMD joined this unit. The Department flourished in this environment and soon had fifteen faculty members and eighty full-time students. In 1984, four students (three in speech pathology and one in audiology) were admitted into the Department’s new doctoral program, and three years later, Ph.D. degrees were conferred upon its first graduates. With an emphasis on research and teaching, the program was designed to prepare professionals for academic careers at major research universities.

In 1995, COMD began one of the nation’s few master’s degree programs in speech pathology to be offered entirely through distance education. This program was designed to assist the State Department of Education in meeting federal mandates to upgrade existing bachelor’s-level clinicians to the master’s degree. Again, funded by a US Department of Education training grant, 24 students, all of whom were employed in the public schools, began this three-year, part-time program, and in 1998, 21 of those students received the Master of Communication Disorders degree (MCD). In 2006 COMD began addressing the SLP vacancies in rural parts of the state by expanding the MCD program to include applicants with no previous undergraduate training in speech-language pathology.

COMD has graduated over 1,000 master’s-level communication professionals and a substantial number of doctoral level professionals. Based on available data, the School of Public Health’s graduate program in COMD has become one of the nation’s largest, with 177 students currently seeking their master’s or doctoral degree. The USC Speech and Hearing Center offers state of the art assessment and treatment of communication disorders. It provides over 5,000 clinic visits per year and houses the USC Cochlear Implant Team and Auditory Verbal Therapy Program, the Stroke Recovery Program, the Early Childhood Language Program, the Parent Training Program, and many other services for individuals with speech, language, hearing, or swallowing problems. In addition to the USC Speech and Hearing Center, the program utilizes over 300 external practicum sites to prepare its students for clinical practice. Unique specialty training is available in the areas of neurological disorders and habilitation of children with cochlear implants.

COMD graduates are speech-language pathologists in medical centers, schools, and clinics throughout South Carolina, the Southeast, and the nation. Many graduates have pursued doctoral level studies and have been outstanding academic leaders in other colleges and universities. COMD graduates are leading professional advocacy organizations such as the Alexander Graham Bell Association. COMD has expanded its research impact and is contributing significantly to brain imaging, voice analysis, auditory processing, and language function in children and adults. COMD has an outstanding history and a continued commitment to excellence.