2023/24 Monthly Blogs

August 2024

The month of August began with the members of the executive board meeting to discuss general roles and expectations for the year, as well as plan upcoming engagement opportunities for students. On August 17th, we were proud to represent NSSLHA at the Purdue B-Involved Fair, which included setting up a table and promoting the organization to incoming students. We were excited to have our first meeting of the year on August 27th. As this was the callout meeting, we gave a brief introduction to the organization as a whole, introduced both the officers and advisors, and provided a general overview of the semester. We also introduced the GLASS Program, National NSSLHA, and Legislative Day, all of which are great opportunities for SLHS undergraduate students to get involved at both Purdue and in the community. At the end of the meeting, members had the chance to complete a bingo card and chat and get to know their neighbors. All in all, August was a great start to the semester! We’re looking forward to having our freshman and sophomore panel meeting on September 10th and our junior and senior graduate school panel on September 17th.

September 2024

September was a big month for our chapter! We had a freshman and sophomore panel on September 10th. We had upperclassmen, professors, and faculty speak about their experiences, give advice, and share ways to get involved in the SLHS department and on campus here at Purdue. On September 17th we also held a graduate school panel for the current juniors and seniors in NSSLHA. Our panel consisted of professors and graduate students representing both the SLHS and AuD pathways. Our chapter asked the panelists many questions about applications and what to expect in graduate school.   In addition to these meetings for our members, we held 3 exec meetings to prepare for these events and for future guest speakers and general meetings. Next month we are looking forward to our guest speaker who is sharing her experience with having Aphasia, and our Bob Ross painting night!

October 2024

This month on October 1st, we held a meeting with a guest speaker who shared her experience of having a stroke and how that affected her life. She gave us advice on how to work with patients as future speech pathologists, and her experiences with therapy with Aphasia. On October 22nd we held our Bob Ross painting night where we followed a video and competed to see who could paint the best! This is an event that we have done previously, and members requested to do it again. On October 24th we had a tabling event for Student Advocacy Day. At this event we had officers and graduate students share about the Student Loan Interest Elimination Act, send letters to Congress, and compete in penny wars between the SLHS department and the AuD department. This was a very busy month filled with multiple exec meetings planning our events, while also checking in on each other. We are looking forward to our events in November which share about ISHA and Legislative Day in the spring, and a Guest Speaker sharing about the Parkinson's Voice Project. Our chapter also introduced our fundraiser with a local boba shop to raise money for the Parkinson's Voice Project in November.

November 2024

This is the last meeting month of 2024! For our first meeting on November 5th, we learned more about legislative day from our ISHA liaison. We had speakers share their experiences from going to past legislative days and shared with our chapter what ISHA was, and what legislative day does for our future careers. On November 12th, we welcomed our special guests from the Parkinsons Voice Project! They shared what the organization was and what resources they provided for those with Parkinsons Disease. November 14th was exciting because we held a fundraiser for the Parkinson's Voice Project alongside TSAOCAA, which is a local boba place in West Lafayette. We sold 74 cups of boba and raised $88.56 for PVP, which was amazing! We held a holiday party on November 19th where we made holiday crafts, watched Charlie Brown Christmas, and had snacks with hot cocoa! This was our last meeting for 2025 but we are very excited about what we have planned for 2025!

December 2024

This month, Purdue NSSLHA celebrated our December Graduates by providing them with stoles and recognizing them in our newsletter. Our executive team also met to discuss the semester’s events and to plan more exciting events for next semester. We are eager to get a break for the holidays and to return in January to start the semester strong!

January 2025

We are starting the new year off strong! During our spring callout meeting on January 22nd, we held a trivia game night and our members did very well! Our game included questions about Purdue’s history and sports as well as the SLHS department. We also held a gratitude mason jar painting event, where our members were able to socialize and express their creativity with one another! We are very excited to see what February brings, as some of our members will be preparing and participating in ISHA’s Legislative Day at the Indiana State Capitol.