Sertoma Club
The Speech/Language/Hearing Sciences (SLHS) Department at Minnesota State University Moorhead (MSUM) has established an affiliation with the Fargo-Moorhead Sertoma Club to provide support for speech, language and hearing services in the Fargo-Moorhead area and the surrounding community. This has also resulted in the development of a Collegiate Sertoma Club and significantly involved undergraduate and graduate students from the MSUM-SLHS Department in the activities of the club.
Sertoma's financial support has taken several forms, including grants for the establishment and support of important programs that benefit the local community. An initial grant established the MSUM-Sertoma Auditory Disorders Clinic which has been serving the needs of the hearing handicapped for more than ten years. More recent grants and contributions have assisted with the development of a Central Auditory Processing Clinic, provided seed money for planning a new building for the MSUM-SLHS Department and Clinic, and helped in making the MSUM-SLHS Department and Clinic a well equipped academic program and clinic. The F-M Sertoma Club has also provided financial support for MSUM -SLHS students attending state and national professional meetings. This support has been a significant boon to both the education of future speech-language pathologists and audiologists and to communicatively handicapped people in the community.
A less tangible, but more significant, benefit of this relationship has been the camaraderie that has developed between the Sertomans and the SLHS students and faculty. The Sertomans host at least one student and faculty member at each Monday meeting, which gives everyone a chance to get to know each other informally. In turn, the students of Collegiate Sertoma host at least one event per year that brings the Sertomans onto the MSUM campus and into the clinic.
The programs and events on the MSUM campus keep the Sertomans informed about the needs of the communicatively handicapped, the services that are available, and how F-M Sertoma has helped to meet the needs of those with communication problems. Recent programs have included information on how parents can help their children become better communicators, the nature of stuttering and how it can be effectively treated, and the nature and assessment of central auditory processing disorders.