Department and Program’s Mission, Vision, Goals, and Strategic Plan

The department shares the mission, vision, and values embraced by UT Health San Antonio and the School of Health Professions.

UT Health San Antonio

The University's mission is to "make lives better through excellence in education, research, health care, and community engagement." The strategies of achieving this mission are cultivating a new generation of excellent health care providers and scientists, conducting top-notch research, making discoveries available to the public, actively engaging in community healthcare service, and advocating in healthcare policy.

School of Health Professions

The School of Health Profession's mission is to provide an excellent education to nurture future health professionals and leaders and advance the science and practice of the health professions. The main goal is to be a world-renowned school with top-ranked programs in the United States.

Speech-Language Pathology Program

As an integral part of the University and School, the Master of Science in Speech-Language Pathology (MS-SLP) program aims to make lives better through education, research, health care, and community engagement.

Mission 

The mission of the MS-SLP Program is to provide graduates with a broad knowledge base, expertise in evidence-based approaches, and real-world problem-solving (particularly in health care settings) experiences. We will achieve this mission through excellent education, scholarship, patient care, community partnership, and cultural diversity.

The MS-SLP Program will do this through:

•    Educating a diverse student body to become excellent speech-language pathologists;

•    Providing graduates with a broad knowledge base, expertise in evidence-based approaches, and real-world problem-solving (particularly in health care settings) experiences;

•    Advancing the science and practice of speech-language pathology through research and scholarship;

•    Ensuring that our students, graduates, and faculty provide outstanding speech-language pathology services to our patients and community; and

•    Providing leadership for the speech-language pathology profession through professional service, community engagement, and community education.

Vision 

Our vision is for the MS-SLP Program to be recognized as an outstanding training and education program that prepares excellent speech-language pathologists to practice in any setting, with additional training and a focus on the medical speech-language pathology

Program Goals

We seek to train and educate medical speech-language pathologists who are exceptional critical thinkers and research-driven clinicians who incorporate best practices to deliver high-quality, cost-effective, and accessible speech-language pathology services. We also seek to prepare leaders in speech-language pathology who can contribute to their profession and the communities they serve.

Goal 1: Excellence in Education.
The speech-language pathology program will demonstrate excellence in training and educating future speech-language pathologists in healthcare.

Goal 2: Excellence in Research and Scholarship.
The program will contribute to the discipline by participating in discovering and disseminating new knowledge, skills, and tools in communication sciences and disorders.

Goal 3: Excellence in Patient Care.
The program will ensure high-quality clinical services to patients and communities in San Antonio and South Texas.

Goal 4 Focus Area: Excellence in Service and Community Engagement.
The program will make important contributions in the areas of professional service and community engagement.

Executive Summary: Strategic Plan 2017-2022 

Program Goal 1: Excellent education

Strategy 1. Recruit highly qualified faculty with respectable educational credentials, expertise, and professional experience to provide students excellent academic and clinical education.  

Strategy 2. Develop a curriculum that integrates problem-based learning, innovative design, community-based clinical training, and multidisciplinary preservice education to prepare students to be exceptional critical thinkers and research-driven clinicians using the best practices.

Strategy 3. Provide students robust clinical training in a health science campus environment and a wide range of community-based practica in preparation for future work as speech-language pathologists in diverse clinical settings.

Program Goal 2: Scholarship

Strategy 1. Provide a supportive environment (e.g., funding, equipment, facilities, library resources, protected time, faculty mentoring, etc.) for faculty's and students' scientific inquiry and scholarship.  

Strategy 2. Support students in the development and completion of individual capstone projects under the guidance of faculty mentors. 

Strategy 3. Foster collaborative research opportunities between faculty and students for scholarship and prepare graduates for a competitive application to advanced training programs (e.g., Ph.D.).   

Program Goals 3 and 4: Patient Care and Community Engagement

Strategy 1. Train and guide students through community-based clinical practica or community outreach activities in providing high-quality speech, language, and hearing services to individuals of all cultures, ages, and disabilities.