By Zoee McDow

MURFREESBORO, Tenn. — Two Middle Tennessee State University faculty members in the Department of Health and Human Performance have been recognized with grants to help continue funding their efforts to enhance in- and out-of-classroom opportunities for their students.

Kathryn Blankenship and Karen Davis, associate professors in the Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology, or SLPA, program, run the SLPA Student Ambassador Program, which gives SLPA majors the opportunity to attend recruiting events and serve as tutors and mentors for their peers in beginning SLPA courses.

Both have been awarded a grant from MT Engage and the Learning, Teaching, and Innovative Technologies Center, also known as the LT&ITC, as well as another grant from the Tennessee Board of Regents. 

Blankenship said the student ambassador program helps recruit and retain students into the Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology major. 

“We initially started (the SLPA Student Ambassador Program) to be the face of our program, and to get our students more involved and give our students opportunity to have leadership roles outside of our student organization,” she said. 

During 2021-2022, Davis was awarded a $24,000 TBR Student Engagement, Retention, and Success grant to increase retention of Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology Program students. This grant enabled her to start SLPA Uplift, the predecessor to the SLPA Student Ambassador Program, which mostly focused on tutoring. After the program’s conclusion, Davis realized that mentoring could improve the program. 

“We started out with tutoring, (and we now) help them to develop the power of mentorship and what it means to be a support to your peers. We saw the outcome of student success, and that is really one of the things that we wanted all our students to walk away with.” 

Blankenship participated in the first All Inclusive Mentoring, or AIM, program for faculty. This collaboration between MT Engage and the LT&ITC assists faculty in facilitating a variety of mentoring relationships, including faculty to faculty, faculty to student, and student to student. The AIM program, facilitated by interim LT&ITC Directors Jennifer Caputo and Lando Carter, included 14 faculty participants who met four times during Spring 2024 and developed their own mentoring action plans. Blankenship went into the program wanting to learn about faculty-to-faculty mentoring, but says she quickly learned about the power of peer-to-peer mentoring. 

“I’ve done a lot of faculty-to-student mentoring … and I’ve been fortunate to have some really amazing mentors in my educational career. I think that when you have peer-to-peer mentorship, there’s an added value that faculty-to-student (mentoring) can’t provide, and I think I didn’t really realize that until I was in AIM,” said Blankenship. 

In Fall 2024, Blankenship and Davis were awarded a $2,250 AIM Higher grant from MT Engage and the LT&ITC to enhance the support they provide their student ambassadors. AIM Higher grants are available to faculty who have completed the AIM program and help them create mentoring opportunities or expand an existing mentoring program. 

The goal of the student ambassador program is “to create this culture of real support and unity … making sure that our students know that not only are faculty here to support them, but also understand that their peers are too,” said Davis. 

Since the program’s implementation, more students have been successful in foundational SLPA courses. For example, the audiology course had a 73% pass rate in 2023, which rose to 93% in 2024. In addition, 100% of students passed the clinical placement test in the 2023-24 academic year. Blankenship and Davis attribute this improved performance to the SLPA Ambassador Program. 

The next AIM cohort will meet in Spring 2025. Interested faculty can contact MT Engage Director Julie Myatt at julie.myatt@mtsu.edu or interim LT&ITC directors Caputo and Carter at jennifer.caputo@mtsu.edu or lando.carter@mtsu.edu. 

— MTSU junior Zoee McDow of Fayetteville, Tennessee, is double majoring in public writing and rhetoric and religious studies.