Photo Courtesy of @nsslha_hu on Instagram
Imagine: It’s Wednesday and you’ve just finished your morning class. Instead of kicking back and relaxing with some YouTube videos and a drink from Starbucks, you head to another classroom to take notes on a presentation that may as well be a part of the class you just left. For members of Hofstra’s National Student Speech Language Hearing Association (NSSLHA), this is a typical Wednesday.
Meant to shape students into professionals, NSSLHA holds its members to a high standard. Just to be considered an active member, students must pay dues, attend seven out of their 10 meetings each semester and volunteer at a minimum of one outside event.
Such events include the club’s fundraising dinner, but most students volunteer to work at NYU Winthrop Hospital in Mineola, specifically with children who are linguistically or aurally impaired.
“Three, four times a semester we will get a group of five or six people and they will go to Winthrop Hospital and meet with kids and they’ll make crafts,” said the club’s vice president Samantha Slootmaker, a junior speech-language-hearing science major.
Most recently, during Valentine’s Day weekend, a group of students made Valentine’s Day crafts with the kids. Visits to Winthrop benefit both the children and the students, who get the opportunity to work with the people they might one day treat.
Professionalism is a large part of the NSSLHA’s ethos; members commit to the club’s standards because they know it will further prepare them for their futures. Being in the NSSLHA “helps you prepare for the field,” said Gabrielle McLeod, a senior speech pathology and linguistics major. “It comes as second nature now: Dressing business professional, coming on time to clinics, having your applications in on time, because that’s what the field demands.”
Another focus is giving members life lessons, according to Sean Runkle, a senior speech-language-hearing science major and president of Hofstra NSSLHA. “Last week we did a session on cultural competency, and that’s not something we’ve typically learned about in classes,” Runkle said. In leading the club, Runkle said he hopes to lend “perspective on what we are learning and what we can use in the future.”
In spite of the emphasis on professionalism, members don’t feel that the requirements prevent anyone from joining. “I’m a slacker and I’m here,” McLeod said. “All it really demands is you showing up, paying dues and paying attention. It’s just doing your due diligence.”
Hofstra NSSLHA’s executive board tries to strike a balance between the professionalism the field requires and the relaxed, fun nature typically found in a college club. “Sometimes we do games to get to know each other,” said Sarah Infante, a junior speech-language-hearing science major.
Susan DeMetropolis, club advisor and assistant professor of speech-language-hearing sciences, loves the dedication the club’s members have and wants to expand outreach opportunities by adding an advocacy component to Hofstra NSSLHA. DeMetropolis explained that she hopes to take members to Washington, D.C. so they can begin “promoting not only the profession but themselves as clinicians, researchers and professionals and reaching out [on behalf of] patients that we treat.”
