The College of Communication and the Speech, Language & Hearing Sciences received a large anonymous donation in memory of former faculty members William Ney and Ed Shaughnessy. Collegian file photo.
LILY O’CONNOR | NEWS CO-EDITOR | lkoconnor@butler.edu
An anonymous donor gifted the College of Communication (CCOM) with $4.4 million to support the Speech, Language & Hearing Science (SLHS) program in memory of former faculty members and alumni, William Ney ’58 MS ’67 and Ed Shaughnessy ’58 MA ’63. $4 million of the donation will be used to support students in SLHS at every stage of the program with the establishment of the William Ney Endowed Professorship and the William Ney Memorial Scholarship. The remaining money will be used to establish the Dr. Ed Shaughnessy Memorial Scholarship for students majoring in English.
Dean of CCOM Joseph Valenzano emphasized the importance of the donation and the publicity it could bring to Butler’s SLHS program. He believes that the program is already very strong and that additional funding will only make it more accessible.
“There’s going to be lots of downstream impact on students in a broad way,” Valenzano said. “Gifts like these are important because they signal strength. They signal quality to the broader population of folks who then look at the school and say, ‘Hey, wait, I want to invest in that success.’”
SLHS department chair Tonya Bergeson said that Butler’s SLHS program is unique because there is not an attached Master’s program, meaning that all research and clinics that would typically be reserved for graduate students at other universities are accessible to undergraduate students.
Junior SLHS major Olivia Bourne appreciates the opportunities afforded by Butler’s programs.
“The SLHS program does a good job about incorporating real-life experience [through opportunities to be a student clinician],” Bourne said. “I think any money towards that would be money well spent.”
Bergeson also explained that Butler’s SLHS program is unique due to the amount of students interested in research since it is common for SLHS majors to continue on to a Master’s program and become speech-language pathologists. Since Butler does not have a connecting graduate program, students are more inclined to participate in research at the undergraduate level to prepare for applying to graduate programs.
Junior SLHS major Monica McKnight believes that research is essential to the SLHS career fields. However, not many students are able to get involved with research due to lack of opportunities.
“In order to further get our field to where it needs to be for clients we need to do research,” McKnight said. “I feel like not a lot of people conduct research [in the SLHS field]. That’s something more of us could get into with this donation.”
The second major fund to come from this donation is the William Ney Memorial Scholarship, which will be awarded to students who are majoring in SLHS.
Valenzano and Bergeson both expressed excitement about the opportunity to make the program more accessible.
“We haven’t had any SLHS-specific scholarships, so we’re so excited that this scholarship will be there to help support a student who might otherwise not be able to come to Butler,” Bergeson said.
Valenzano believes that the donation will have profound impacts on present and future students. The professorship and scholarship will help students achieve success within SLHS career fields.
“In this day and age, it is increasingly competitive to get high-quality students, and you need to be able to help them realize their dreams of having an education like that that we provide at Butler,” Valenzano said.
