SLU Hosts In-Person Trivia Night for Majors; Department to be Renamed

Students and Departmental faculty of the Saint Louis University Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders (CSD) were excited to have an in-person event to connect with fellow program members on Wednesday, March 17.

Freshman CSD major McKenzie Maude attended in person and was drawn to come because “all my CSD classes are online so to have an in-person event was a nice change of pace”. The university has been advocating to get students to participate safely in events that are on campus and can be monitored for COVID-19 precautions. This event occurred in person with online attendance offered as well. Planning in-person events during a pandemic presents its own set of hurdles. “We had to go through the google form that SLU sent out about having a student event on campus” Saneta Thurmon, one of the event hosts recalled. In addition to planning events, the actual structure of mentoring has shifted as well. Having a place for students to access all the documents with any information they could need has been important. “I feel like in the past that wasn’t as important because I would see the students, they would talk to me after class or before class or just in the hallway” and a lot of information would be passed along this way.

The CSD department provided a PowerPoint with information ranging from course offerings, to research opportunities, to study abroad information. Several departmental faculty spoke in addition to the main host, Saneta Thurmon. Also an assistant professor and CSD program director, Thurmon noted a plus side to having an in-person option for the event was “some of the freshmen have never even met me or met each other”.

The night concluded with a kahoot trivia game with a category specifically pertaining to questions to do with the CSD major. “Kahoots are always fun” Maude noted as a second draw to the event. Additionally, it was announced the name of the department will be changed from Communication Sciences and Disorders to ‘Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences’ to better reflect the graduate and undergraduate program, the department being a part of Doisy College of Health Sciences since 2016, and to better align the wording with current terms used in disability circles. The official name change will begin to occur as the upcoming fall semester approaches.