Pi Beta Phi lands service award
The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association is recognizing the Nashville Pi Beta Phi Alumnae Club, a service organization that has supported programs of the Vanderbilt Bill Wilkerson Center since 1951, with its Distinguished Service Award for 2011.
The award recognizes significant contributions to the professions of speech-language pathology and/or audiology by individuals or organizations that are not members of ASHA.
Vanderbilt’s Anne Marie Tharpe, Ph.D., chair of the Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences, along with members of the Alumnae Club, will be on hand to receive the award at the Honors Ceremony during the ASHA Convention in November in San Diego.
“I couldn’t be happier that the Pi Beta Phi Alumnae Club is receiving this award that they so richly deserve,” Tharpe said. “For 60 years, these women have been working hard, behind the scenes, to support the work that we do every day at the Bill Wilkerson Center. Literally thousands of individuals with communication disorders have benefited from their generosity.”
The Nashville Pi Beta Phi Alumnae Club has operated an annual fundraiser for the Bill Wilkerson Center for half a century and raised an average of $100,000 each year for the provision of speech and hearing services to the people of Tennessee.
Along with the PBP Alum Club, David Seidler, Oscar-winning screenwriter of the film “The King's Speech,” will receive the Annie Glenn Award. Seidler's own difficult experience with stuttering, and his determination to overcome this obstacle, was the driving force that motivated him to bring that powerful story to the screen.