4400 Boylan Spring 2014 Newsletter of Speech Language Pathology and Audiology
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Volume 13 4400 Boylan Spring 2014 Newsletter of Speech Language Pathology and Audiology Not My Last Lecture Robert Goldfarb ’68, M.S., ’72 Ph.D. To Gail Gurland, old friend and colleague, thank you for the opportunity to write this article and acknowledge that, in large part, I owe my career to Brooklyn College. s Randy Pausch said in The Last Lecture, let’s start by acknowledging the elephant in Athe room. I am writing this article from my hospital bed, where I hope I will be able to tolerate a new medication that will stabilize my heart. In mid-June, I became a stroke expert, having had a brainstem stroke (a pontine infarction, for those readers who are neurogenic communication disorders specialists). I have been dealing with the consequent effects of severe right hemiparesis, which is much better now, mild ataxic dysarthria and mild dysphagia. The two degrees I earned from Brooklyn College have helped me prepare for my current health challenge. At a time when speech therapists worked mostly as sound correctors (we were not trained to be SLPs until the late 1970s), having mentors such as Boyd Sheets, who specialized in aphasia, and Oliver Bloodstein, who specialized and my calculus TA couldn’t solve the problems in stuttering, inspired my future work and have that my professor assigned. Add to this my aided my recovery. fascination with shooting pool at the Student There will be more about these wonderful Center (then known as SUBO), and it was no men later in this essay, but any talk of Brooklyn surprise that the only Dean’s List that I was on had College has to begin with the Country Fair, where something to do with being on probation. Where two teenagers, met on April 5, 1967, and first could I get a couple of quick A grades? became friends, and then life partners. I was 19 at My older cousin, Dan Flickstein (who has the time, a junior in Curtis House; and Shelley, my taught basic speech in Boylan Hall for 40 years) wife of 44 years, was an 18-year-old sophomore suggested some courses in acting and oral in Wellesley House. Our charity project involved interpretation of literature. The suggestion was a building Cinderella’s coach and charging admission good one. There I also discovered Mel White for Country Fair visitors to pose on it for pictures. to be an inspirational professor of basic, advanced I started the College as a pre-engineering major, and, just as Beryl Adler wrote in the 2012 issue of and quickly encountered the curse of Ingersoll this publication, honors-level oral interpretation Hall, where GPAs go to die. Bench sciences were courses. Professor White took a personal, but in more than an immature 19-year-old could handle, (continued on Page 3) and Sigma Alpha Eta, respectively. Greetings from We also welcomed Jennifer the Program Sass-Brown as a newly appointed lecturer, and celebrated the Director distinguished careers of Roberta Gail B. Gurland Chapey, Rochelle Cherry and Tim Gura, all of whom retired this past year. n behalf of the faculty Despite budgetary and staff of the program constraints, our accomplishments Oin speech-language continue to be many and a great pathology and audiology, I am source of pride to all of us who pleased to bring you the lucky have benefited from a Brooklyn 13th edition of 4400 Boylan. Once College education. During again we are delighted to share these difficult fiscal times, your the reflections of six outstanding generosity is more important themselves in the field of alumni who represent various to us than ever. To that end, as communication sciences and generations of graduates. These you read and reflect on your disorders, locally and nationally. individuals share their memories own experiences at Brooklyn We continue to have a of the college as well as the paths College, we ask you to consider great deal about which to be that led them to the worlds of giving back at whatever level is proud, from ongoing faculty and academia, private practice, adult possible so that the outstanding student research and training health care and public education. work that has been going on opportunities, to innovations Additionally, distinguished here for more than 80 years in community outreach and alumnus Ron Tikofsky partners may continue for generations to clinical services. Our chapter of with faculty member Susan come. Whether you donate to the the National Student Speech Longtin to share memories of one program at large or request that Language Hearing Association of the program’s most esteemed your donation support one of our (NSSLHA) continues to sponsor alumnae Norma Rees, a former student or client scholarships, an annual symposium, under the president of ASHA, who passed faculty mentored student direction of Natalie Schaeffer. away this year. research, community outreach The graduate peer-mentoring This year we completed the or general clinical educational program, under the direction of eight-year-cycle of the Council materials, we thank you in Cyndi Stein, remains a vital on Academic Accreditation advance for your generosity. aspect of student life, as does the (CAA) review, and we anticipate We look forward to hearing Friday student clinical workshop reaccreditation by summer 2014. from you and hope you will series, led by Susan Bohne and We admitted 36 new students consider a visit to the campus Naomi Shualy. for fall 2013, with more than half and the Diana Rogovin Davidow This was a year in which coming from undergraduate Speech Language Hearing we experienced a number of institutions other than Brooklyn Center. You will find that our transitions: Sharon Beaumont- College and from such varied commitment to provide the Bowman and Akiko Fuse disciplines as music, theater, very best academic and clinical assumed faculty leadership of neuroscience, literature and education continues to be central the Graduate Student Speech- business. Our students and to our mission. alumni continue to distinguish Language-Hearing Organization 2 4400 Boylan (continued from Page 1) About 20 years later, when I was a Describe the anatomy, physiology no sense unprofessional, interest full professor and program director and neurology of such an event. in me. He and I saw the final dress at Lehman College, this former One opportunity we had rehearsal of the prototypical supervisor (she didn’t last long at BC) in graduate school came as a Balanchine ballet that would evolve came for a job interview. I asked her if result of the contact Professor into Jewels, with the choreographer she remembered being my supervisor, Sheets made with the chief of the running up and down from the and she replied that she had too Gastroenterology and Endoscopy orchestra to the stage for last-minute many students to remember any of Department at Downstate Medical adjustments. “Unca Mel” (as he would them. She didn’t get the job, and it’s Center. “Big Ed,” as we called him, sign the letters that we exchanged for not just because revenge is a dish but never to his face, was about years after he left for the University best served cold. 6 foot, 5 inches tall and 300-plus of Hawaii), knowing my interest After graduation, I found myself pounds, with a ruddy complexion in piano and jazz, also took me to providing speech therapy to children that became redder whenever see the great Canadian jazz pianist, in three NYC public schools, even he raised his voice, which was Oscar Peterson. There is no doubt though I wasn’t old enough yet to basically all the time. We went to in my mind that my decades-long vote. Fortunately, Professor Sheets the medical school for our evening subscription to the New York City took a chance on me, and gave me a class, and I still use the notes from Ballet had its genesis in the awe that provisional acceptance to the Master his course on dysphagia paralytica was inspired in me by my experiences of Science program. In the years that in my teaching, and still pronounce with Professor White. Joel Kahane, Chuck Goldman and I the disorder “dysphahzhia,” as the There was another dividend of worked and studied with Professor gastroenterologists do. taking speech and theater courses; Sheets (although none of us named The longer you live, the more I discovered that the Department a daughter “Boydina” in his honor, Dickensian-type coincidences of Speech also featured a course in as he often joked we would), we become a fact of life. Years after my the anatomy and physiology of the grew as students, as clinicians and course with Big Ed, I was hired by speech mechanism. Here was an as men. How could we measure up the Veterans Administration (that’s opportunity to sink my intellectual to someone who had the courage to now known as the Veterans Affairs) chops into something challenging, leave the security of his childhood in Department in Brooklyn to start a in an environment that seemed so Salt Lake City for New York to serve speech pathology and audiology welcoming. And the rest, as they say, as a spy in Germany during World service at the VA Extended Care is history. War II under the cover of being a Center in St. Albans, Queens. During Well, not quite. We had to Mormon missionary, and then work the construction of the clinic, I do a clinical practicum as seniors, for the FBI before becoming our worked at the acute care facility on and the dress code was, as Donna teacher? But somehow, in our own Poly Place in Brooklyn.