After leading the department for 15 years, Anne Marie Tharpe, PhD, Vickie and Thomas Flood Professor of Hearing and Speech Sciences and chair of the department, will step down from her role as chair, effective June 30.
Under Tharpe’s leadership, the department has maintained a remarkable trajectory of advancing clinical care for those with communication disorders. Clinical programs within the Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences include the Divisions of Pediatric and Adult Audiology, Pediatric Speech-Language Pathology, Implantable Devices, Medical Speech-Language Pathology, Vestibular Sciences, and Pi Beta Phi Rehabilitation Institute.
With five clinics, two preschool programs, and acute care services provided at Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt and Vanderbilt University Hospital, an additional eight clinics were opened in the last 15 years in six counties across Middle Tennessee.
“The Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences is a well-established world leader. We can be proud that the department’s programs have helped generations of patients overcome a wide range of communication disorders while its graduate training programs and research programs continue to set the standard for excellence,” said Jeff Balser, MD, PhD, President and CEO of Vanderbilt University Medical Center and Dean of Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. “I want to thank Anne Marie for a lifetime commitment to making Vanderbilt a better place. She is stepping away from this role having accomplished so much.”
Tharpe came to Vanderbilt as an audiology master’s student in the late 1970s and received her degree in 1980. She practiced clinically at the Vanderbilt Bill Wilkerson Center for Otolaryngology and Communication Sciences, took a leave of absence to serve as chief of Audiology Services at King Fahad Hospital in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, from 1982 to 1984, and returned to Vanderbilt to practice clinically. Tharpe went on to earn her PhD at Vanderbilt in 1994 and accepted a faculty position at what was then called Louisiana State University Medical Center before returning to Vanderbilt as faculty in 1996. After a productive academic career of research and teaching, Tharpe was named chair in 2009.
“I am fortunate to have been a part of the department’s long and storied history for more than 40 years,” Tharpe said. “Freeman E. McConnell, PhD, the inaugural director of the Bill Wilkerson Center, who was appointed in 1951, and Fred H. Bess, PhD, his successor, both had a lasting impact on me and the department. Without the lessons learned from their leadership and the strong program they built, my contributions would have been meager. I credit them with whatever accomplishments I was able to implement,” Tharpe said.
The department is also home to four graduate studies programs — Master of Science in speech-language pathology (MS-SLP), Master of Education of the deaf (MDE), Doctor of Audiology (AuD), and Doctor of Philosophy (PhD). Two of these programs, the AuD and the MS-SLP, are ranked No. 1 by U.S. News and World Report among their peer institutions; the AuD since 2004 and the MS-SLP since 2012. The graduate program has approximately 135 students annually, making it the second largest educational program in the School of Medicine.
“I am proud that, with the hard work of the department and VUMC leadership teams, we have been able to expand the scope of our services to patients in rural areas where such specialized care is not available,” Tharpe said. “We have also continued an emphasis on provision of care throughout the lifespan, which is the impetus for sustaining our preschool for children with hearing loss and, more recently, our preschool for children with autism. Without these programs, many of these children would have nowhere to receive the services that can result in the development of effective communication that prepares them for academic achievement.”
The research mission of the department has also been highly successful. The recipient of numerous federal and industry grants, the department faculty secured more than $9 million last year to support their innovative work — over a twofold increase in the last 15 years. This work ranges from the basic sciences that enhance our understanding of human communication mechanisms and their various impairments to pragmatic clinical trials that result in improved treatments for those with communication disorders that can be quickly implemented.
“Through her thoughtful leadership, Dr. Tharpe has built education programs renowned nationally and internationally,” said Donald Brady, MD, Executive Vice Dean for Academic Affairs in the School of Medicine. “She has mentored inspiring leadership for those programs and made education an integral part of the fabric of her department.”
The financial security of the department has benefited from 265% growth in its permanent endowment to over $22 million.
“The department is fortunate that many friends in our community, as well as our alumni throughout the country and beyond, have given generously to our academic and clinical programs,” Tharpe said. “Their generosity has allowed us to educate future clinicians and scientists, increase our capacity to serve patients, and grow and foster discovery in ways that will benefit the department and those we serve well into the future.”
