Dear CAPCSD Member,

Below are the upcoming anticipated dates so that you may plan accordingly. Dates are subject to change. CAPCSD will send separate email for each of the below dates with official information.

CAPCSD Board of Directors Call for Nominations

Consider nominating yourself or a colleague! You are encouraged to contact Ann Eddins, Chair of the Nominations Committee, with any questions about the positions or the nomination process.

For complete details or to submit a nomination, please click here.

Thank you to the 2025-2026 Nominations Committee:
Ann Eddins, Chair (University of Central Florida)
Shubha Kashinath (California State University - East Bay)
Christina Pelatti (Medical University of South Carolina)
Jennifer Simpson (Central Michigan University)
Monitoring Officer Katie Strong, Past President (Central Michigan University)

2026 Honors & Award Nominations

2026 Admissions Summit - Call for Applications

The Conference Planning Committee chose to highlight the elevation of Denver in the conference theme: Elevating Excellence. Pre-conference sessions, plenary presentations, and invited sessions were each identified at the June planning meeting from thorough review of the 2025 conference reviews and feedback, and new committee ideas. The committee reviewed, edited, and confirmed the conference schedule and call for papers/posters processes with a renewed the commitment to balancing invited sessions with breakout sessions from the Call for Papers/Posters. In August, invitations went out to speakers.

In August and September, CAPCSD received a record-breaking 210 submissions in its Call for Papers and Posters process. In October, 68 volunteer reviewers completed submission reviews so that each submission received three reviews. The Conference Planning Committee reviewed the scores and was able to notify (24) poster submissions, (29) 60-minute submissions, and (9) 90-minute submissions of their acceptance. If you are calculating, that is 29.5% of submissions which were accepted.

The committee finalized Solution-Focused Dialogue session topics and speakers in October. In total among all conference sessions, CAPCSD is working with 220 speakers. During the week leading up to the annual conference, there are multiple professional development which have been and will be made available to CSD professionals including the Lisa Scott Leadership Academy on Tuesday and Wednesday (20 applicants have been selected & notified), the Admissions Summit on Wednesday (applications are open now for 25 seats), and (3) four-hour pre-conference sessions on Wednesday. 

On Thursday and Friday, after conference sessions, Networking Nights will take place. These are optional, one-hour windows for you to network with other CSD professionals. Thursday's options are geared for regional groups and Friday's options are geared for role-specific groups. If you are a part of an existing regional or role-specific group, or would like to represent a new one during Networking Nights, please reach out to Mandie as soon as possible. We will not assign a group to a meeting room without a volunteer to invite colleagues, facilitate and kick things off in the meeting room. If you're wondering why 2025 did not have a Networking Night for the role or group you're interested in, it is most likely because we need a volunteer like you to be our point person.

We hope you will take advantage of the numerous professional development and networking opportunities CAPCSD is providing to elevate excellence in CSD education at the 2026 Annual Conference week in Denver, Colorado! 

Annual Conference Early Bird Registration

Monday, January 6 - Saturday, February 28

Members & Affiliate Members: $625

Non-Members: $775

Regular Registration Rates begin Sunday, March 1!

Members & Affiliate Members: $775

Non-Members: $925

Pre-Conference Sessions (4/8/26)

Each 4-hour option requires a registration & fee.

Members & Affiliate Members $100

Non-Members: $150

Hotel Room Block

Hyatt Regency Denver at Colorado Convention Center

Scheduled to open Monday, January 6

$259 room rate + 15.75% taxes = $299.79 per night

King & Two-Queen Bed Rooms are available

Make your room reservations as soon as block opens as the block fills up each year!

Conference Schedule

Wednesday, April 8, 2026

8:00 AM Pre-Conference Session* (4 hrs)

12:30 PM Pre-Conference Sessions* (4 Hrs, 2 choices)

5:30 PM Newcomers' Orientation
6:00 PM Welcome Reception (Ends at 8 PM)

Thursday, April 9, 2026

7:00 AM Continental Breakfast w/Exhibitors
7:50 AM General Session
10:00 AM Beverage Break w/Exhibitors
10:30 AM 60-Minute Breakouts
11:30 AM 90-Minute window for Posters & Lunch w/Exhibitors
11:45 AM 60-Minute Exhibitor CEU Sessions
1:00 PM 90-Minute Breakouts
2:30 PM Beverage Break w/Exhibitors
3:00 PM 60-Minute Breakouts
4:15 PM 60-Minute Breakouts
5:15 PM Networking Nights (Ends at 6:15 PM)

Friday, April 10, 2026

7:00 AM Continental Breakfast w/Exhibitors
7:50 AM General Session
10:00 AM Beverage Break w/Exhibitors
10:30 AM 60-Minute Breakouts
11:30 AM 90-Minute window for Posters & Lunch w/Exhibitors
11:45 AM 60-Minute Exhibitor CEU Sessions
1:00 PM 90-Minute Breakouts
2:30 PM Ice Cream Social w/Exhibitors
3:00 PM 60-Minute Breakouts
4:15 PM 60-Minute Breakouts
5:15 PM Networking Nights (Ends at 6:15 PM)

Saturday, April 11, 2026

7:00 AM Continental Breakfast
7:50 AM General Session
10:00 AM Beverage Break
10:30 AM 60-Minute Breakouts
11:30 AM 60-Minute Breakouts
12:30 PM Sessions End / Annual Conference Concludes

DEIB - 

Bridges to Belonging: Merging Community Partnerships with CSD Curriculum

Community Partners as Co-Educators
Community organizations and agencies can serve as strong support systems to help achieve learning outcomes through real-world experiences. International centers, advocacy groups, nonprofit organizations, support centers, and other local agencies can help to expose students and clinicians to invaluable perspectives and lived experiences. When strategically merged with course content, these partnerships can help to enrich the CSD curriculum. For example, partnerships between CSD programs and community-based organizations make fertile ground for insights into serving culturally and linguistically diverse populations in ways that are not available in the traditional classroom setting. These partnerships can lend themselves to opportunities for guest speakers, expanding externship sites, and identifying advocates who can serve as liaisons between the program and community. Establishing these partnerships in-turn creates a pathway to raising awareness in communities about the role of CSD professionals across populations and settings.

Access and Representation in Clinical Education
Who best to teach us about the communities we are to serve than members of those communities themselves? Establishing community partnerships can be one way to help diversify student experiences and thus readiness to serve those communities in the future. Through intentional partnerships with local agencies, CSD programs may be able to capture a more diverse base for learning opportunities while simultaneously creating a sustainable path for access and equity of services. When coupled with ethical practices, these relationships can provide a platform for students to observe the intersection of culturally responsive care and social determinants of health.

Establishing Sustainable and Mutually Beneficial Partnerships
Preserving the integrity of DEIB in community-based partnerships requires reciprocity. For all parties to best benefit from the relationship, programs can seek to first understand the group, or organization’s goals and look for commonalities between the two where resources can be best utilized in an equitable way. Sustainable relationships require an investment between all parties involved.  To help ensure success, CSD programs should seek to build rapport with partners, which includes maintaining communication with point-people in the organization. This is of particular significance to do so when working with highly vulnerable or marginalized communities. In the process, students should be taught not only how to establish these relationships, but ways in which they can be maintained and even repaired if/when needed. Again, this is of great importance as key players in programs and universities are subject to change more readily than community members.

Empowering Students
When students are encouraged to collaborate with organizations to enhance their personal growth and learning, they are often introduced to environments and people they may not typically encounter in their day-to-day experiences. When coupled with ongoing learning, these experiences can empower students to gain a deeper appreciation for their own communities. As community-based activities are synthesized with classroom coursework, students can be empowered with ways to responsibly seek opportunities for engagement on their own. Unique experiences that bring the world to our students helps them to see themselves as active contributors to inclusive systems and purposeful partnerships that support DEIB in the continuum of care.

As we seek ways to enrich learning in the CSD curriculum, establishing and maintaining community partners can be a sustainable way to advance shared goals through a reciprocal relationship. By infusing partnerships into our program structure, we can create spaces which actively engage with and affirm the populations we serve. These collaborations can give way to students’ better understanding the importance of access, equity, and inclusion within the profession.

Kimberly Green, EdD, CCC-SLP
Co-Chair, DEIB Committee

Board Buddy Q&A

CAPCSD's Board of Directors assigned a "Board Buddy" to each of its new board members to help transition into their three-year terms on the CAPCSD Board of Directors. To help our CAPCSD member programs get to know our new board members, each month the newsletter will feature a board buddy asking the new board member questions. This month, VP of Online Professional Development, Erin Lundblom, posed these questions to the new VP of Clinical Education, Andy Clare.

Erin Lundblom, PhD, is an associate professor and the director of clinical education for the Speech-Language Pathology program at the University of Pittsburgh. This is her third year as VP of Online Professional Development on the CAPCSD Board of Directors.

Andy Clare, DHSc. CCC-SLP, is an associate clinical professor and the assistant director of clinical education for the Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences at The George Washington University. Andy joined the CAPCSD Board of Directors as VP Clinical Education on July 1, 2025.

Erin: What inspired you to join the board?

Andy: When I first transitioned from clinical practice into academia, I quickly became aware of CAPCSD serving as an amazing resource for professional and programmatic development through things like the conference, trainings, webinars, and CEUs. Over the years my work with CAPCSD has helped me to expand my professional network as well, which has been so valuable. Wanting to give back, I volunteered to serve on the Clinical Education Committee. Since then, I’ve had the privilege of being able to chair that committee, and now, stepping into the VP of Clinical Education role feels like a natural continuation of that journey. I’m excited and grateful to join the board and look forward to the adventures ahead!

Erin: What’s a fun fact about you that most people don’t know?

Andy: I ride to and from work on a Vespa. It has been a game-changer… cutting both the door-to-door time, and the cost of my commute!

Erin: What’s one CAPCSD initiative or area you’re particularly passionate about?

Andy: I really value how CAPCSD supports member programs in tackling challenges in Clinical Education. If I had to choose one initiative, it would be the CAPCSD Clinical Education Resource Repository. It’s an evolving project, and we’re working hard behind the scenes to refine and expand it as the landscape of clinical education evolves. Providing meaningful resources and incentives for community externship supervisors is a challenge that all programs face, and I hope our initiatives help lighten that burden a little by offering ready-to-use, no cost tools. Obviously, the Key Principles of Clinical Education webinar course, which can help supervisors meet the ASHA CEU requirements for supervision, is another amazing CAPCSD offering that we have put a lot of work into in recent years.

To reach Erin or Andy please email them:

Erin Lundblom
VP Online Professional Development
vpopd@capcsd.org

Andy Clare
VP Clinical Education
vpce@capcsd.org

Admissions Corner

Preparing for the Review Process

The Admissions Corner is designed to help programs with the admissions process for graduate education programs in audiology and speech-language pathology. We want to provide information related to CSDCAS, application management, and multiple other issues related to admissions. We are focusing the next few Admissions Corner articles on preparing for different stages of the application process. This month’s focus is on early preparation for the review process. 

The majority of programs have application deadlines in Spring 2026, so you have a couple of months before your application deadline hits and your review process starts. (If your program has a rolling admissions process, the recommendations below still apply.) If you are a new faculty member in charge of the admissions process, thinking about the review process can be overwhelming. You are not alone; even faculty with experience in admissions feel the same pressure. There are steps you can take now to make the workload easier once it hits in the Spring. Here are just a few:

(1) Identify past areas of concern: What issues has your program had in past application review cycles? Once you know where your program needs improvement, you can take the next couple of months to put systems in place to improve your processes. Some you can’t control, but some you can. Reach out to the Admissions Committee if you need guidance.

(2) Begin communicating with other university/college units about your application process: What, if any, “university hoops” is your program having to jump through regarding admissions? Many of our graduate education programs that use CSDCAS are required by our respective universities to have supplemental applications (e.g., Graduate School applications). Do not be afraid to argue that these supplemental applications should not require applicants to upload the same materials that they upload to CSDCAS. If you can’t change the system, there are multiple options in CSDCAS to help applicants navigate supplemental applications. 

(3) Begin organizing your admissions committee: Who on your faculty participates in reviewing? Your entire faculty? A subset? One effective strategy to reduce faculty workload and expand the review perspective is to include community partners who have an investment in your program, including external supervisors, faculty from related disciplines, and alumni. Identify and recruit the best ones who are willing and able to help you with admissions reviews, and let them know your timelines and deadlines.

(4) Do not be afraid to ask for advice: What questions do you have about admissions? Whether you are new to the admissions process or you have experience, please reach out to (a) the Admissions Committee and (b) other Admissions Coordinators with whom you feel comfortable communicating. The latter includes faculty in programs with whom you are not competing for applicants.

In the next Admissions Corner, we will talk about strategies related to application management.

https://www.capcsd.org                                                                                                                                                                                       November 2025