Selena Galaviz Represents College of Liberal Arts as Highlight Student at Fall 2008 WSU Commencement

PULLMAN , Wash. – Recommended by the Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences, Honors College student Selena Galaviz will be the 2008 “highlight student” for the College of Liberal Arts at Washington State University’s fall commencement on December 13 in Pullman. Highlight students are those being recognized for outstanding contributions to WSU and the community. Galaviz believes that she was chosen because of her passion for her speech and hearing sciences major and for her leadership skills. According to Galaviz, her achievements at WSU are a guided effort.

At her aunt’s suggestion, she took the introductory class in the major and says she was hooked.

“I love everything about it. You get the best of both worlds: specialized teaching and the medical aspect,” she says. Galaviz is also pleased with her Honors College experience. “The level of attention and the effort the Honors teachers give to their students is absolutely amazing,” she says.

Galaviz tied her Honors thesis to her major with a project titled, “A Needs Analysis for Speech-Language Pathologist Workers with Culturally Linguistic Diverse Populations.” She surveyed practitioners in Washington and focused on the issue of how speech pathologists can effectively work with interpreters for those who are speech or hearing impaired and are English Language Learners.

She plans to turn her Honors College thesis into her master’s thesis in the future.

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CONTACT: Merik Metos, Communications Intern, Office of Undergraduate Education, 509-335-8070, mmetos@wsu.edu