Program Policies

Graduate students are required to maintain a minimum cumulative and semester grade point average of 3.00 or above at the end of each semester. Failure to do so will result in either academic dismissal after two consecutive semesters of a grade point average below 3.00 or placement on academic warning after a single semester of a grade point average below 3.00. A grade of B- or better must be received in all of the following:

1. Speech-language pathology required courses
2. Practica and Externships
3. Speech-language pathology electives

In cases where a student is not meeting the minimum competence requirements for any course as stipulated in the course syllabus, they are required to contact the instructor to discuss potential Intervention.

The Department of Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology at Ithaca College concurs with and abides by the official position of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (1998) regarding accents and/or dialects. This position states:

It is the position of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) that students and professionals in communication sciences and disorders who speak with accents and/or dialects can effectively provide speech, language, and audiological services to persons with communication disorders as long as they have the expected level of knowledge in normal and disordered communication, the expected level of diagnostic and clinical case management skills, and if modeling is necessary, are able to model the target phoneme, grammatical feature, or other aspect of speech and language that characterizes the client's particular problem.

The department further affirms, in accord with the ASHA position, that:

Members of the professions of speech-language pathology and audiology and the consumers they serve all speak with accents and/or dialects that reflect when, where, how, and with whom and from whom they learned language.

We reject all forms of discrimination, including those based on linguistic differences. 

Procedures for expressing a complaint about the SLP graduate program at Ithaca College:  

•  An individual who believes that the SLP program at Ithaca College is violating the accreditation standards of the Council on Academic Accreditation (CAA) may contact the CAA directly to express the concerns.   
•  Criteria for complaints and submission requirements can be found at https://caa.asha.org/programs/complaints/.  
•  One of the submission requirements is that the complainant follow institutional policies regarding filing a complaint. Prior to contacting CAA, the individual should discuss the complaint with the department chair. If the concern is not satisfactorily addressed, the individual may pursue expressing the complaint through relevant Ithaca College review/grievance processes.  
•  If the concern is not satisfactorily addressed after following the appropriate complaint procedures at Ithaca College, the student may submit the complaint to the CAA.  

 For more information, see CAA Accreditation Handbook - Chapter XIII