Rockville, MD - Dec. 30, 2004 - Dolores E. Battle, PhD, CCC/SLP, Professor of Speech-Language Pathology and Senior Advisor to the President for Equity and Campus Diversity at Buffalo State College, will take her post as president of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) on January 1, 2005. Battle is a speech-language pathologist and has been a member of ASHA for 31 years. During her tenure, Battle seeks to strengthen ASHA's commitment to advocating for those with speech, language, and hearing disorders and improve services to ASHA members. One priority is to increase educational opportunities by providing the latest information, research, and technology that will benefit both the consumer and the professional.
"I intend to use my year as ASHA President to continue to advocate for effective service for culturally and linguistically diverse populations," said Battle. "As I meet and communicate with members, my goal will be to increase the understanding of the needs of all of our clients regardless of their culture, regardless of their linguistic background."
Battle has served in a number of roles as an ASHA volunteer leader, serving on ASHA's Legislative Council, Financial Planning Board, Education Standards Board, the Council on Professional Standards, and several committees and task forces. She has also been named an ASHA Fellow, one of the highest honors bestowed by the Association.
"One of our biggest challenges is to be able to attract the best and the brightest scholars, both men and women, to careers in speech-language pathology and audiology and to provide them with the very best academic and clinical education so that they will be able to provide high-quality clinical service to all clients in our ever-expanding scopes of practice," said Battle.
Battle also works with the New York State Network of the American Council on Education Office of Women in Higher Education and serves on several community boards that aim to improve life for people with social and health care needs. She mentors undergraduate speech-language pathology students and is currently president of the International Association of Logopedics and Phoniatrics. Battle holds a BA from the University of Massachusetts, an MSEd from Buffalo State College, and a PhD from SUNY, Buffalo.
The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) is the national professional, scientific, and credentialing association for more than 115,000 audiologists, speech-language pathologists, and speech, language, and hearing scientists. Audiologists specialize in preventing and assessing hearing disorders as well as providing audiologic treatment including hearing aids. Speech-language pathologists identify, assess, and treat speech and language problems including swallowing disorders. For more information, log on to ASHA's Web site at www.asha.org or call the Action Center at 1-800-638-8255.
