Dear CAPCSD Member,

As winter continues, many CAPCSD members are engaged in admissions work, reviewing applications and making thoughtful decisions that will shape the future of our professions. I want to acknowledge the time, care, and collaboration this work requires across our community.

This issue highlights work that advances the profession. Our Awards recipients are being honored for work that meaningfully advances the profession through leadership, mentorship, and educational innovation. In addition, the featured DEIB article, Dismantling Microaggressions in Clinical Settings: A Guide for Teaching CSD Student Clinicians, offers timely guidance to support inclusive teaching and supervision in clinical environments. We also look ahead to the CAPCSD Conference as a space for shared learning, reflection, and connection around the issues shaping our collective work. We hope you find this issue informative and useful as you continue your work this season.

Important Dates

Below are the upcoming important 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.

2026 Honors & Awards Recipients

It is with great honor that the CAPCSD Board of Directors announce the recipients of the 2026 Honors of the Council, Distinguished Contribution Award, and Excellence in Diversity Awards. The dedication to our field and commitment to excellence by these members has not gone unnoticed and we are thrilled to have the opportunity to acknowledge their contributions.   
 
Join us in celebrating their accomplishments that have further strengthened the mission of our profession, our association, and our member programs. 

Distinguished Contribution Award

Laura A. Karcher, MA, CCC-SLP, CBIS

Indiana University

Excellence in Diversity Awards

Hsinhuei Sheen Chiou, PhD, CCC-SLP

Minnesota State University Mankato

Vannesa Mueller, PhD, CCC-SLP

University of Texas at El Paso

Teachers College, Columbia University

Texas Woman's University's Distance Education SLP Program

Honors of the Council Awards

Jennifer Simpson, AuD, CCC-A

University of Central Michigan

Jennifer P. Taylor, AuD, CCC-A

University of Memphis

Call for Committee Volunteers & One-Time Opportunities

Annual Conference | Elevating Excellence | April 8-11, 2026

Announcing CAPCSD's 2026 Virtual Conference

From the 2026 Annual Conference in Denver, CO, CAPCSD is presenting the 2026 Virtual Conference on April 9-10, 2026. This virtual conference will feature 10 hours of online sessions by invited speakers and selected presenters on the conference theme, Elevating Excellence.

• Earn up to 1.0 ASHA and AAA CEUs
• Available live only
• Not available on-demand
• As these sessions are also breakout sessions during the annual conference, there will not be an Add-On option for those attending the annual conference.

Thursday, April 9, 2026

10:15 AM MT - Helping Students Master Professional Practice Behaviors: Elevating Student Success through Clinical Education [Kelly Harrington, Lisa McDonald] 

11:30 AM MT - Threading the Access Needle: Supporting Disability Inclusion in Communication Sciences and Disorders [Madhu Sundarrajan] 

12:45 PM MT - Beyond the Basics: Elevating Excellence in Asynchronous Online Graduate Education [Klaire Brumbaugh, Lauren Wright Jones] 

2:15 PM MT - Innovate, Educate, Publish: A Guide to SoTL and Simulation [Amanda Stead]

3:30 PM MT - Problem-Based Learning Across Disciplines: Discomfort as a Catalyst for Interprofessional Growth [Mikaely Schmitz]

Friday, April 10, 2026

10:15 AM MT - Preparing CSD Students for Trauma-Informed, Interprofessional Collaboration [Emily Weston] 

11:30 AM MT - Creating Equitable Faculty Workloads [Caitlin Al-Mutawa, Charlotte King] 

12:45 PM MT - CATALYST: Embedding Critical Thinking Instruction Across Undergraduate and Graduate CSD Coursework [David Rehfeld] 

2:15 PM MT - Financial Literacy for Students [Victor Bray, Robert Serianni]

3:30 PM MT - To AI or Not to AI, That is the Question. AI Ethics in CSD [AnnMarie Knight, Becky Jones]

$225 CAPCSD Member

$225 CAPCSD Affiliate Member

$275 CAPCSD Non Member

DEIB

Dismantling Microaggressions in Clinical Settings: A Guide for Teaching CSD Student Clinicians

Within speech-language pathology and audiology programs, faculty and clinical educators have increasingly engaged in critical conversations about how to support students who experience microaggressions from peers, faculty, and supervisors. Far less attention, however, has been given to how student clinicians are prepared to respond when microaggressions originate from the very clients and patients they are training to serve. While the field has begun to explore strategies for identifying and dismantling microaggressions, these discussions are frequently confined to stand-alone coursework (e.g., multicultural issues courses) or to organization-sponsored webinars rather than systematically embedded in clinical methods and supervision curricula. As a result, student clinicians are often left without explicit guidance until an incident occurs in practice.

The medical education literature demonstrates that hate speech and microaggressions directed at clinicians by patients are not isolated events, but rather common occurrences, underscoring the need for proactive training. Cultural responsiveness, therefore, must be understood as a reciprocal process: one that not only prepares clinicians to deliver equitable and respectful care but also equips them with the skills to interrupt and address microaggressions encountered in clinical interactions. Accordingly, clinical supervisors must be prepared to explicitly teach and model these skills.

To address this gap, the framework proposed by Acholonu et al. (2020), originally developed to train medical students to respond to patient-directed bias, is applied here to the preparation of student clinicians in speech-language pathology and audiology. The sections below outline this framework and illustrate how it can be adapted to support student clinicians and guide clinical supervisors in preparing for and responding to microaggressions in practice.

Recognition: Naming the Microaggression in Clinical Context

The intent of recognition is to teach students to identify biased or discriminatory language or behaviors as they occur. Student clinicians must be able to recognize the various types of microaggressions embedded within clinical encounters. Clinical supervisors can use pre-clinic priming and case-based discussions to normalize these experiences and help student clinicians name them as microaggressions rather than internalizing them as personal failures or isolated incidents.

Pause and Assess: Prioritizing safety, Power, and Context

This component encourages student clinicians to pause before responding and to assess situational dynamics, including safety, power differentials, and clinical context. Students must be explicitly taught how to evaluate when and how to respond. Instructions may include guided discussions, structured decision-making tools, and role-play activities. Clinical supervisors should also clarify when students are expected to respond independently and when supervisory intervention is appropriate, thereby reducing ambiguity and fear of retaliation.

Respond: Interrupting the Microaggression

Responding to microaggressions is often the most challenging step for student clinicians. The intent of this practice is to move the student from being a passive recipient or bystander to an empowered professional who can address bias directly and appropriately. Providing students with concrete, professionally aligned language supports their ability to interrupt microaggressions while maintaining therapeutic rapport. Clinical supervisors should engage students in role-play, simulations, and reflective rehearsal prior to clinical exposure, similar to training used for counseling and difficult conversations.

Debrief and Reflect: Processing the Experience

Debriefing is a cornerstone of effective clinical supervision and is equally critical following experiences of microaggressions. Structured debriefing allows student clinicians to process emotions, reflect on the encounter, and connect individual experiences to broader systemic patterns of bias. Clinical supervisors should intentionally frame these discussions as core teaching moments. Strategies may include guided reflective journals, post-session debrief meetings, and targeted reflective questions.

Report and Support: Institutional Responsibility

This component of the framework reinforces that addressing bias is not solely the responsibility of the student clinician. Institutions must establish clear protocols for documenting patient-directed discrimination in clinical logs and provide assurance that students will not be penalized for reporting concerns or disrupted sessions. Clinical supervisors must be prepared to advocate for students, intervene when necessary, and model institutional accountability and support.

In conclusion, when adapted for speech-language pathology and audiology, this framework shifts responsibility away from individual student resilience and toward intentional clinical pedagogy and supervisory competence. Embedding these components within clinical education ensures that student clinicians are not only culturally responsive providers but also protected, supported, and empowered professionals in training.

Karen C. Davis, PhD, CCC-SLP

DEIB Committee Member

References

Acholonu, R. G., Cook, T. E., Roswell, R. O., & Greene, R. E. (2020). Interrupting

microaggressions in health care settings: A guide for teaching medical students. MedEdPORTAL: The Journal of Teaching and Learning Resources,16, 10969. https://doi.org/10.15766/mep_2374-8265.10969

Sue, D. W., Capodilupo, C. M., Torino, G. C., Bucceri, J. M., Holder, A. M., Nadal, K. L., & Esquilin,

M. (2007). Racial microaggressions in everyday life: implications for clinical practice. The American psychologist, 62(4), 271–286. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.62.4.271.

Admissions Corner

Rubrics Tips and Tools

Graduate speech-language pathology and audiology programs are increasingly using holistic approaches to evaluate applicants (e.g., Jernigan & Carbonneau, 2025). This shift illustrates that our field recognizes the need for a workforce that reflects the diverse populations we serve. Change is hard, though. Numbers, like GRE and GPA, are clean and easy to analyze. How do we quantify to capture skills like integrity, goal mindedness, accountability, and collaboration? The answer lies in the use of RUBRICS (Scheer-Choen, Heisler, & Moineau, 2022). A rubric is a scoring guide that includes pre-selected criteria, and those criteria are pre-defined with descriptions, examples of skills, and/or quantities. The key here is pre-defined. The pre-defined criteria in a rubric reduces implicit bias because it creates transparent and data-driven decisions that are used consistently to review each applicant. Using rubrics, an evaluator makes it clear how the applicant was reviewed.

Shifting to a rubric-based system for evaluation is not without effort. Consider faculty buy-in, time to review applicants, rubric trainings and revisions. As long as the goal is to find the best future clinicians, then the creation, evaluation, and use of rubrics is worth the effort. See below for some resources to get you started!

• College Board: Holistic Review in Admissions: A comprehensive guide that breaks down how to align your rubric with your school's mission. It’s excellent for understanding how to weight "contextual factors" (like overcoming adversity).
• AAMC (Medical School) Holistic Review Toolkit: While designed for medical schools, their framework—E-A-M (Experiences, Attributes, and Metrics)—is the industry standard for high-stakes admission rubrics.
• Colorado State University Graduate School provides a downloadable rubric template specifically for comprehensive graduate review, including sections for "Scholarly Potential" and "Leadership."
• Holistic Admissions Review Toolkit provides descriptions and downloadable rubric templates.

Expert Tips for Admission Rubrics

• Use a 1-3 or 1-5 Scale: Avoid "Pass/Fail." Admissions need "spread" in the data to distinguish between many qualified candidates.
• Define the "Middle": Most people naturally grade toward the middle. Make sure your "3" (in a 1-5 scale) has a very specific, boring description so reviewers are forced to justify a "4" or "5."

If you need help with the admissions processes for your MA/MS and/or AuD graduate education programs, or you need help with WebAdMIT or CSDCAS, please do not hesitate to reach out to the Admissions Committee and CAPCSD’s Director of Centralized Admissions.

Admissions Committee Contacts

https://members.capcsd.org/admissionscommittee

Teasha McKinley, Director of Centralized Admissions

teasha@capcsd.org 

Important: Update Your CAPCSD Member Information Today

To best serve your membership needs, CAPCSD asks each member to update their contact and demographic information. This is especially important if you attend any education sessions from CAPCSD and want your CEUs reported to ASHA.

Updating your information enables CAPCSD to report your CEUs when you attend the annual conference or take a webinar. It also helps CAPCSD better understand the composition of the membership and tailor its services accordingly. Furthermore, it aids us in planning future education programs and delivering targeted content that supports your work.

1. Log in to your CAPCSD account: https://members.capcsd.org/MIC/Login
2. This takes you to the Info Hub. On vertical, left-hand menu, click 'My Info'.

Click here for detailed instructions on what information you should update today. update your member information.

CAPCSD On-Demand Opportunities 

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