Donors such as Vickie and Thomas Flood are supporting the Vanderbilt Bill Wilkerson Center’s world-class teaching, research and clinical care. The Center specializes in communication disorders such as hearing, speech, language, and voice problems.
For many years, the Floods have supported faculty needs, research, graduate students and other expenses related to childhood hearing loss. Their generous contributions led to the creation of the Vickie and Thomas Flood Chair in Hearing and Speech Sciences.
The endowed chair was awarded this year to Fred H. Bess, Ph.D., director of the National Center for Childhood Deafness and Family Communication and professor of Audiology in the Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences. Bess previously served as chair of the Vanderbilt Bill Wilkerson Center from 1978 until 2009.
“Tom and I have supported the center to help children, their families and the wonderful researchers, teachers and support staff to find new and more sophisticated devices to aid in hearing,” Vickie Flood said. “Children are our future and as Tom and I have seen in previous years with the students who have moved on from the Vanderbilt Bill Wilkerson Center, nothing is impossible, and we are honored to be part of this wonderful organization.”