USF Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders 50th Anniversary Oral History Program

In 1967, The University of South Florida added a five year degree known as Communicology. The communicology program was initially housed in a run-down two-story apartment building on Fletcher Avenue endearingly known as “Mildew Manor” and consisted of roughly thirty students interested in speech pathology or audiology. Over the last 50 years, the Department of Communicology has experienced immense changes and growth, becoming what we know today as the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders (CSD). CSD is currently housed in a state-of-the art four-story building on campus, offers undergraduate education in language, speech, and hearing science, sign-language interpreting, and Deaf studies, offers graduate education in audiology, communication sciences and disorders, and speech-language pathology, and boasts nationally esteemed faculty. In honor of CSD’s 50th anniversary, graduate student Stephanie de Silva, with the help of undergraduate students Mary Aragona and Taylor Baber, conducted interviews of USF CSD alumni and previous faculty who shared heartwarming stories of their experiences in USF CSD over the decades and the programs that helped shape their successful careers.