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From: Russ Hicks
Date: 09 Oct 2008
Time: 12:21:13 -0500
Remote Name: 70.104.19.41
Hi Jessie! Greetings not only to you but to Heather and Joanie too. <smile> Trends... As Bill Clinton said (changed slightly), "It depends on what the definition of 'trends' is." <grin> Let me give you some examples on short term (during the interview itself), intermediate term (during school and starting a career as an SLP), and long term (longer than 5 years). Short term, during the interview, it's important to meet as informal FRIENDS. I love restaurants or places like Starbucks. It's not a formal "interrogation" process but a fun time to get to know the other person. The young students that I've interviewed are absolutely beyond incredible. Not only are they friendly and beautiful (the girls not the guys, ha, ha!), but they are almost all intellectually brilliant. If you can start off with very light discussions like "How about them Cowboys!?" (or "Go Huskers!" in Nebraska-speak) then the rest of the interview goes wonderful to the point that you're both disappointed that after a couple of hours of talking and laughing together, you both really need to get back to school, work and family. ... Intermediate term is a tougher question. Graduate students are SOOO busy (I'm telling you something new, right?) that I have not been able to keep up with any of them as their school goes on. I'm gonna get with Jan and see if she can do a better job answering this part than I did. Stay tuned... ..... Long term I actually have only one data point, but it's one of the joys of my life. The stuttering professor down at the University of Texas at Austin emailed me one day and invited me down to speak to her graduate student SLP class. Of course I said yes! It turns out that she heard me speak to her class at Texas Christian University in Ft. Worth when she was an undergrad student a decade earlier. And she told me that it was my speech to her class that day that inspired her to become a stuttering specialist and a future SLP professor! That blew me away! You never know who you touch! But you can be assured that you DO touch LOTS of people. ... I wish you the very best in school and in your career, Jessie. Beat on Joanie to bring me up to Omaha. I'd love to put on an NSA regional workshop for y'all up there. That way we can actually meet in person! I'd love that! ..... Russ