Professor honored for work
This article is one of a series of three profiling the work of this year’s trustee professors at Utah State University.
Carol Strong was named by the USU Board of Trustees as one of three trustee professors of the year at the beginning of March. The honor was a shock to the veteran professor.
“It was a complete surprise to me,” she said. “I didn’t even know I had been nominated. But it was a delightful surprise.”
“This prestigious honor is reserved for the university’s most outstanding senior faculty members,” said Lowell Peterson, chair of the USU Board of Trustees.
Strong has influenced not only students on campus, but people around the country. Her work with speech-impaired children in various communities around the country has earned her nation-wide respect in the field of speech pathology.
One example of the instruction she provides is helping children with “storytelling skills.”
“When a child tells a story or retells a story, they’re engaged in a monologue. And so a child with a communications problem, it gives them a chance to just talk about an entity, a story or one they heard,” Strong said. “You can tell a lot about where their strengths and weakness are when they have an opportunity to communicate at length about a topic.”
This idea that Strong developed incorporates literacy, which can be a better indicator of an impairment.
Strong has been at USU since 1973 when she began work as a clinical assistant professor.
She was named the associate dean for research in the College of Education last year. She now can only teach half time, but she is able to spend time instructing others in improving their work with children.
Strong’s work currently includes upcoming workshops in New Jersey and Wisconsin, where she will help teachers and speech pathologists by teaching them to assess and provide intervention for school-age students with speech and language problems.
To be eligible for the Trustee Professorship, a professor must be a full professor who has been at the university at least 10 years and be outstanding in one or more of the following areas: teaching, research, service to the university, the community and administration.
J. Clair Batty and Anne Aust were also named trustee professors.