Departments
What's in a Name?
The current department of Communication Arts, Sciences, and Disorders (CASD) was known as the "Speech Department" in 1931, the year after the college was founded. In addition to speech courses in voice and diction, extemporaneous speaking, and the phonetics of English, the department also had offerings in classical drama, Shakespeare, and play production, and soon added "Theater" to its name.
The Department of Speech and Theater had courses in the related disciplines of television, radio, film, speech pathology, and audiology.
When all disciplines were together—speech, theater, television/radio, and film, and the college had an enrollment of 34,000 students—Speech and Theater was the largest department in the college, running more sections of more courses on both the undergraduate and graduate levels than any other department. The department remained as "Speech and Theater" until 1973, when Theater split off to take its own life, and in 1974, Television/Radio did the same. Shortly thereafter, Film followed suit, so by the end of the decade, the department was once again known as "Speech."
Within the Department of Speech, the areas of concentration at that time included speech pathology, audiology, speech and hearing sciences, rhetoric-communication, and oral interpretation. Around 1990 or so, the department became "Speech Communication Arts and Sciences" and remained so for nearly 30 years. In 2018 the department became "Communication Arts, Sciences, and Disorders" to reflect more accurately the breadth and depth of the discipline. The word "speech" was dropped from the department's name to reflect national trends and the fact that speech is but one form of communication. Indeed, both the communication arts and the communication sciences are concerned with nonspeech forms of communication, including both the nonverbal and the written as well as alternative forms of communication such as assistive technology. Broad in scope, the department reaches from the natural sciences (for example, anatomy and physiology) and the social and behavioral sciences (for example, gender and communication) through education (for example, autism spectrum disorders), business (for example, interpersonal communication for business and professions), the humanities, and the performing arts (for example, the oral interpretation of prose, poetry, and children's literature). No other department covers the breadth of disciplines the way Communication Arts, Sciences, and Disorders does.
The Center
A significant part of the department since its inception was the Speech and Hearing Center of Brooklyn College. In 1939, it expanded its reach to serve the larger community and the Brooklyn College Community Speech Clinic was formed—one of the oldest of its kind in the country. In 1951, the unit became known as the Brooklyn College Speech and Hearing Center under the direction of Dr. Robert West, a nationally known authority in speech-pathology and a founder of what is now known as the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. The center, currently named for Diana Rogovin Davidow, a 1966 alumna, serves as the primary location for experiential clinical learning for undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral students in communication sciences and disorders. The center is a training facility that works closely with the academic programs, which are accredited by the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) Council on Academic Accreditation in Audiology and Speech-Language Pathology. The center continues to serve individuals from the college and the surrounding communities, providing an array of diagnostic and rehabilitative services for children and adults with speech, language, voice, communication, and hearing impairment under the supervision of licensed speech-language pathologists and audiologists. The center is available to individuals including students, faculty, staff, and residents from Brooklyn and beyond.
Recent Trends
The CASD Department is in the process of undergoing major curricular revisions to mirror trends in its respective disciplines. The program in Communication (Arts) Studies is adding new, contemporary courses in areas such as social media communication, family communication, crisis communication, visual communication, and sports and communication. In addition, Communication Studies has a strong presence in the separate, free-standing interdisciplinary Communication Program, notably in two of its three tracks—Interpersonal and Intercultural Communication and Professional and Organizational Communication. Career paths for students in communication are varied and include advertising, corporate communication, human resources, marketing, public affairs, public relations, journalism, and publishing.
Similarly, the program in Communication Sciences and Disorders has embarked on major revisions, the first in nearly two decades. The program provides students with critical foundational knowledge required to pursue graduate degrees in speech-language pathology and audiology. Employment opportunities in the field are strong and expected to grow faster over the next decade. Moreover, the continuous expansion of the field's scope of practice (from speech to language to communication and most recently, to swallowing) in various patient populations and work settings (such as hospitals, clinics, schools, and private practices) ensures that those in the profession have diverse job prospects. The major will now require new course work in the neurological bases of communication disorders, linguistics, and language development from birth through the school-age years. Students who intend to pursue advanced degrees in speech-language pathology or audiology are encouraged to take courses that satisfy the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association Certification Standards, including statistics, the physical sciences, and social/behavioral sciences. The accredited master's program in speech-language pathology recently added a specialization in early intervention, which emphasizes work with the underserved population from birth to three years.
Coda
The department will continue to evolve as the disciplines themselves expand and the needs of the students and the communities they are learning to serve continue to change.