A better definition of obesity
January 14, 2025
EVANSTON, Ill. - Northwestern’s new Center for Audiology, Speech, Language, and Learning is a real-world example of the University’s 2011 Strategic Plan in action, according to President Morton Schapiro.
President Schapiro and Provost Daniel Linzer joined Dean Barbara O’Keefe of the School of Communication April 16 for the official opening of the new facility located at 2315 N. Campus Drive, within the new North Campus Parking Garage on the Evanston campus.
“The center connects what’s happening inside the classroom to the work outside the classroom,” President Schapiro said, citing a pillar of the University’s Strategic Plan: Integrate learning and experience. “Graduate students not only study here, but they’re practitioners as well. And increasingly undergraduates are getting involved. This mixture of faculty, staff and students is exactly what we want.”
Open to the public, the non-profit center offers evidence-based evaluation and treatment for children and adults, all while providing research and training experiences to Northwestern graduate students in audiology, speech-language pathology and learning disabilities.
Patients from across the Chicago area visit the center for services that address hearing, learning, speech-language and swallowing challenges affected by speech-language difficulties, hearing loss, learning disabilities, autism, stroke and cancer recovery and other issues. Clinical faculty members direct services in partnership with medical teams, educators and other professionals to ensure comprehensive care for each client.
Distinguished Northwestern alumni and longtime benefactors Roxelyn and Richard Pepper were among the reception guests. Among their several generous gifts to the University, the Peppers made a gift in 2005 to the School of Communication to endow the department of communication sciences and disorders, which houses the Center for Audiology, Speech, Language, and Learning.
After cutting the ribbon, Dean O’Keefe invited guests to tour the facility.
“We are completely energized by this,” she said. “It will help us achieve our ambition to be the world’s foremost clinic working with people to improve speech, language, learning and hearing."
