Welcome From the Department Chair

Welcome to Speech-Language-Hearing Sciences (SLHS)! Although I am writing to you as the Department Chairperson, I welcome you on behalf of our entire vibrant community of teachers and learners. We are a collective of compassionate, dedicated, and engaged faculty, staff, and students who aim to work for and with others as we continue in self-exploration and ongoing humility. 

Our Department attempts to uphold the tenets of Ignatian pedagogy in our daily work as we recognize context, engage in experience, practice reflection before we initiate action, and conclude with evaluation, sometimes embracing what the Jesuits refer to as ‘mid-course correction.’ Although we are many and varied, we share the fundamental belief that we are responsible to create and sustain a world of justice, love, and peace and commit to work for the freedom and dignity of all peoples. In other words, we are a living, loving work in progress!

There is much to celebrate in our department from the deep commitment and ongoing action toward equity, inclusion, and justice (see Anti-Racism and Justice Statement), faculty excellence (see faculty page), and student achievements at both undergraduate (see UG page) and graduate (see GR page) levels. What is more difficult to capture on this website, however, is the profound connection we hold to one another and our communities, both large and small. This connection is palpable once you meet any of us, as the love for our work extends into our care for us all. This is, understandably, a charge that isn’t linear in nature with a checklist of what is to be achieved, rather it is way of being that permeates all that we do.

So I invite you to explore the website and to reach out to me, Dr. Janet Preis (jpreis1@loyola.edu) or any other faculty or staff member on these pages to learn more about our programs or just to share your thoughts and suggestions. In the meantime, I offer these simple phrases from the Jesuits’ “Way of Proceeding” to help us individually and collectively create the world we long for: (a) be attentive, (b) be reflective, and (c) be loving.

With deep sincerity,

Dr. Janet Preis, Ed.D., CCC-SLP (she/her)
Associate Professor, Chair
Department of Speech-Language-Hearing Sciences