Master of Arts in Special Education (MA)

Welcome to the Communication Disorders program at New Mexico State University

The CD program is part of a combined department, Special Education/Communication Disorders (SPED/CD), housed within the College of Education, which offers training in Developmental Disabilities, Bilingual Special Education, School Psychology, Educational Diagnostics, Early Childhood Special Education, Deaf Education, and the Visual Impairment/Orientation and Mobility Program. In addition, the Department offers doctoral training in Special Education.

Housed in the SPED/CD Department is the NMSU Edgar R. Garret Speech & Hearing Center. The primary purpose of the Center is to provide training opportunities for CD students, but it also provides a service to the community by offering supervised speech, language, hearing, and swallowing services to persons with communication disorders. The Coordinator of Clinical Services, who is also a CD faculty member, and the Center Secretary schedule student clinical training activities and coordinate the daily administration of the Center.

Much of your coursework and clinical activities are completed in the Speech Building on the NMSU Campus. The Departmental office is located in the Speech Building, Room 245. Many of the CD faculty offices are also located on the second floor of the building, with other faculty. The Speech and Hearing Center office (Room 158), student mailroom and materials room (Room 163), Student Work Room ( Room 188) instrumentation training laboratories and clinical service facilities, including an Audiology Suite and AAC Lab (Room 190), are located on the first floor of the Speech building. Since you are also a student in the Graduate School and College of Education, there are several other places you will want to locate. The Graduate School offices are located in the Educational Services Building. Hadley Hall houses the offices of much of the university-wide administration, including the office of the NMSU President. The bookstore and many of the other facilities that serve students, including eateries, are located in Corbett Center. There are two library buildings at the center of campus, the Zuhl Library and Branson Hall. Both libraries house electronic and print media available for use by CD students.

The Master’s education program in speech-language pathology at New Mexico State University is accredited by the Council on Academic Accreditation in Audiology and Speech-Language Pathology of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, 2200 Research Boulevard #310, Rockville, Maryland 20850, 800-498-2071 or 301-296-5700. The requirements set forth by this governing body determine your course of study. ASHA issues the Certificate of Clinical Competence (CCC) to professionals who have met a set of defined standards (see Appendix A, ASHA Professional Standards, pp. 21-35). As of January 1994, only students who are graduates of a CAA-accredited training program are eligible for the CCC. The CD Program at NMSU has been accredited based on the expectation that our program complies with all accreditation standards over the term of accreditation. The academic coursework you take includes curriculum and clinical practica in a number of specific areas. Appendix B (pp. 36-40) includes the Advising and Tracking Form that will be used to document your progress through the program. We are required to provide you with the clinical education that includes working with specific types of persons with a variety of communication disorders, and that these experiences occur in distinctly different kinds of work settings. You will meet these requirements through your clinical practica before you graduate. The Clinical Program Manual, which you purchase for the practicum course CD 589, is designed to provide you with detailed information and forms that are needed to complete your clinical education successfully.

The College of Education at New Mexico State University was founded in 1956 with William B. O’Donnell serving as its first dean.

Preparing teachers has been a part of NMSU’s history since the 1800s, with education programming occupying different homes through the years. Educational programs were first housed in the School of Agriculture and in 1929-1930 a distinct Department of Education was created. In 1938 the department passed to the School of Arts & Sciences. The Department of Education and Psychology gained administrative autonomy in 1956 when the Department of Education and Psychology was changed to a School of Teacher Education. The term, College of Teacher Education, was employed when University status was gained in 1957.

In 1968, the college moved into its current home in O’Donnell Hall, and in 2008, the college celebrated a major renovation of O’Donnell hall, which modernized the building and created additional room for students and faculty.

The College has over 2,300 students and is a leading producer of teachers, counselors, principals and other educational leaders in New Mexico. The college has approximately 75 regular tenure/tenure track faculty members and usually employs an additional 20-30 part-time and temporary faculty members. The undergraduate program has approximately 1,500 students and the graduate program has about 750 students a year. The College of Education has a diverse student and faculty population, student diversity at the undergraduate level is over 50 percent and faculty diversity this year is at 55 percent with a 30 percent Hispanic representation.

The College has five departments which include Curriculum and Instruction, Counseling and Educational Psychology, Kinesiology and Dance, Special Education and Communication Disorders, and Educational Leadership and Administration. The programs in the college range from the bachelors degree to the doctoral degree and the college is typically the largest producer of doctoral graduates at New Mexico State University.

The College of Education collaborates with local districts and regional consortiums though partnerships, grant funded initiatives, and outreach programs. Many of the programs support teacher professional development, in math and science, administration, counseling, and community health. Several of our math and science initiatives have had direct impact on student performance. More recently the Communication Disorders Program through the Edgar Garrett Speech and Hearing Clinic recently began providing services for persons with Autism

The College of Education is committed to providing educational opportunities for those who have typically not had access. The College is also dedicated to providing excellent educational opportunities for traditional students and partnering with schools to enhance the education of New Mexico’s children.