Tacoria Humphrey was recently named a Dike Eddleman Athlete of the Year, presented annually to the top Fighting Illini male and female athlete
Big Ten long jump champ Tacoria Humphrey has plans beyond her track and field competitions. (Photo courtesy of Fighting Illini)
She races down the rubberized runway, determination pumping through her arms, energy coursing across her strides and focus blazing in her eyes. With a mighty leap, she seems to sail through the air. Sand mushrooms under her shoes as she lands in the pit, the crowd roaring. That’s Tacoria Humphrey—champion of the 2025 Big Ten Long Jump.
Humphrey started track in middle school at Raymond Park Middle School on Indianapolis’ east side, where she broke two records in the high jump and 200 meter. Now, she’s well-decorated: she earned All-American honors in both indoor and outdoor seasons after winning back-to-back Big Ten long jump titles, placed fourth at the NCAA outdoor championships, recorded the third-longest indoor jump in NCAA history as national runner-up and earned a spot on The Bowerman Watch List. Humphrey said her success came from confidence.
“I feel like track is a mental sport,” Humphrey said. “If you believe you can do something, you’re most likely going to be able to do it, whereas if you’re scared or thinking about other people, that’s going to take over your mind and you’re not going to do well.”
Humphrey also attributed her many accomplishments to her training and her coach, Petros Kyprianou, the current director of Track & Field and Cross Country at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
“He has inspired me the most because he really believes in me, and when somebody just believes in you so much, you start to believe in yourself,” Humphrey said. “He’s just so thrilled to coach me, and he sees that I have a bright future and it just makes me want to accomplish everything to the highest level I can.”
She recalled a moment at the 2025 regionals for the NCAA Outdoor Championships. Competitors only had three jumps, and Humphrey’s weren’t up to the number she needed to qualify for nationals.
“After my second jump, he talked with me,” Humphrey said. “He was giving me that pep talk, like, ‘You got this. This is what you’ve been training for,’ and helping me calm down. I literally went from 15th place to fourth, and I qualified.”
Kyprianou was the one who encouraged Humphrey to switch her event from high jump to long jump her sophomore year of college.
“I definitely was like, ‘This is weird,’ but I love trying new things,” Humphrey said. “I never expected to change events and to do so good in that event, but I 100% don’t regret it.”
“I always love helping people. I’m a people person.
Tacoria Humphrey
Community Health major and Dike Eddleman Athlete of the Year
Outside of her national achievements, Humphrey was recently named a Dike Eddleman Athlete of the Year, presented annually to the top Fighting Illini male and female athlete. The University of Illinois Athlete of the Year was first awarded in 1940, and was named in honor of the 11-time UI letterman and Olympian Dwight “Dike” Eddleman in 1993, who is generally considered the greatest athlete in the history of Illinois Athletics.
Caitlin Clarke, a health and kinesiology teaching assistant professor and chair of the Academic Progress and Eligibility Committee, said that sport performance is typically not the only factor that goes into choosing the recipient of the Dike Eddleman award.
“This is part of the culture of Illinois Athletics—they’re not going to go for someone who’s just really good at their sport and doesn’t care about academics at all,” Clarke said. “We get some really phenomenal students who are both really good at their sport and also really good at their major.”
At Illinois, Humphrey is a community health major, with a concentration in health education and health planning and promotion.
“I always love helping people,” Humphrey said. “I’m a people person.”
This summer, she’s participating in the Health and Kinesiology 471 internship program and working with Wellness4Every1, an organization dedicated to ensuring equitable access to high-quality arts and wellness programs for students in diverse communities. Clarke, additionally a lead faculty for the community health internship program, said Humphrey is doing a great job stepping into the professional world.
“She’s future-thinking, because she knows that she wants to compete professionally for a while, but she isn’t just checking off a box with this internship,” Clarke said. “This experience really pushes students to learn how to communicate professionally, which is an important skill anywhere and can be difficult to navigate.”
Clarke said it’s important for all student athletes to also excel outside of their sport.
“Most of our student athletes are going to go on to careers that are not always directly related to sports, so you have to have a plan,” Clarke said. “You don’t want that plan to be, ‘Well, I just kind of did okay in my major.’ You want to be the rock star that gets into a successful career so that you can enjoy your life and do more to help other people around you.”
Currently, Humphrey is preparing to become a pro athlete. Her first pro meet was the USA Track and Field Championships at the end of July.
“I’ll be a little nervous, but not really, because I’ve been jumping big marks that are close to what pros jump,” Humphrey said. “I’m eager to have better competition, and that will definitely push me.”
For her, success means a gold medal, and with her trademark confidence, it’s not a matter of if—but when.
Today’s Department of Health and Kinesiology once hosted the nation’s foremost researchers of sport psychology. Nearly 50 years on, these pioneers reunited at Huff Hall for a weekend on campus.
When Rainer Martens arrived at the University of Illinois in the summer of 1966, he stepped out of his blue Mustang and bounded up the steps of George Huff Hall, to see the university’s Sport Psychology Laboratory with his own eyes.
What he found on the third floor of Huff initially disappointed him: old equipment piled up in the corner of a room with just enough space to seat a class. “We thought we’d come to the wrong place,” Martens said.
Turns out, he wasn’t in the wrong place—maybe just a little early.
What followed was the explosive growth of sport psychology research at Illinois. With help from the university’s world-class department of psychology, a group of likeminded doctoral students—including Martens, Glyn Roberts and the late Dan Landers—began building a formal sport psychology graduate program at Illinois, to study the mental aspects of athletic success, motivation and performance.
Dozens of doctoral students went on to matriculate in the program and bring their discoveries to institutions across the globe. By the late 1970s, Illinois had become the torchbearer for modern-day sport psychology in the U.S., with a vibrant group of researchers at the helm.
Five decades later, a group of those same students and faculty returned to campus to catch up with their former colleagues, and take a tour of their old academic home. The guest list left an indelible mark on the field of sport psychology as it stands today.
Even as Illinois’ own sport psychology program has faded, the legacy of its achievements and discoveries endure in the modern day College of Applied Health Sciences. Faculty at AHS, particularly in Health and Kinesiology, continue to study the psychological effects of exercise and physical activity at large, building on more than 100 years of tradition.
“All these former students, they’ve all gone on to distinguished careers. They’ve gone on to become presidents of national sport psychology organizations, and spoken all over the world,” Martens said. “This gathering, it’s a once in a lifetime thing.”
To cap off their walk down memory lane, these legends of sport psychology got to share lunch with current-day faculty and doctoral students in the Department of Health and Kinesiology.
“That was very humbling, we never expected anybody to turn out,” said Glyn Roberts, who worked as a professor of sport psychology at Illinois until 1998. “It was very rewarding that they would do that for us.”
Guests of Honor
Rainer Martens, a professor of kinesiology at Illinois until 1984, and co-founder of Human Kinetics, leading publisher of books and journals on physical activity
Julie Martens, PhD in sport psychology and the first employee of Human Kinetics, who retired as executive vice president in 2009
Glyn Roberts, professor emeritus at the Norwegian School of Sport Sciences and former professor of sport psychology at Illinois
Tara Scanlan, professor emerita of psychology at UCLA, and her husband Larry Scanlan
Diane Gill, kinesiology professor emerita at UNC Greensboro
Dan Gould and Marty Ewing, professors emeriti at Michigan State. Both earned a Ph.D. at Illinois, and Gould taught here until 1991
Damon Burton, professor of sport psychology at the University of Idaho
Robin Vealey, professor of kinesiology and health at the University of Miami, Ohio
Linda “Bump” Harrison, a publisher who got her PhD in the program in 1987
Marc Lochbaum, professor of kinesiology at Texas Tech who went to Illinois for undergrad and was mentored by several sport psychology greats
Absent were Joan Duda, professor of sport and exercise psychology at University of Birmingham, and Dan Landers, a professor of sport and exercise psychology and co-founder of the Journal of Sport Psychology, who passed away in 2023
‘We didn’t realize it, but we were pioneers’
Though Illinois experienced fertile growth of sport psychology in the 1970s, the seeds were planted by Coleman Griffith, known as the “father of sport psychology” for his pioneering work into the mental aspects of athletic performance.
Griffith founded and ran Illinois’ Athletic Research Laboratory until 1932, where he studied the links between personality and physiology on athletic success. He wrote two books—“Psychology of Coaching” and “Psychology and Athletics”— but left no proteges for his research. Griffith later became provost of the university.
Physical fitness pioneer Thomas “TK” Cureton started his Physical Fitness Research Laboratory in 1944, occasionally collaborating with psychologist Raymond B. Cattell. The two of them examined the relationship between physical activity on personality and several of Cureton’s graduate students examined the anxiety-reducing effects of exercise. In 1951, Professor Alfred “Fritz” Hubbard revived Griffith’s research line with a new Sport Psychology Laboratory, located in a third floor office of Huff Hall, then known as Huff Gymnasium.
Hubbard specialized in motor learning, but saw latent potential in the sport psychology discipline. After a decade of research and recruitment, Hubbard had a prediction: the number of graduate students interested in sport psychology would double or triple by the end of the 1970s. His forecast of growth came true.
Still, those who joined the Illinois sport psychology program in the 1960s found their way to the field before an academic path formally existed. Some started out in coaching or physical education, and were searching for applied knowledge to use in the field.
For Rainer, his experience with intense anxiety before youth wrestling matches inspired him to understand competitive nerves and how to quell them.
After getting degrees from the then-named Department of Physical Education, Landers, Martens and Roberts all eventually joined the Children’s Research Center, a grant-funded research vehicle seeking to explain children’s behavior from multiple academic disciplines.
The recent grads worked in the center’s Motor Performance and Play Research Laboratory, where they used social psychology principles to study children’s play, and explore how their stress levels, personalities and more influenced their motor learning.
The grant-funded lab supercharged their progress.
“A lot of the stuff we did initially was stress related. How do you reduce stress? That was Rainer’s research—what he called competitive anxiety,” said Roberts, who began working at the Children’s Research Center in 1973. “Mine was motivation: how do you make people do what they ought to be doing?”
Full-time research positions to study the field were unusual, and freeing. From 1968 to 1975, Martens stayed on with the Children’s Research Center. Lifted by the university’s resources, namely its enormous library, computing power and collaborators in psychology, the lab produced leading research in sport psychology before peer institutions had caught on to the emerging discipline.
Julie Martens (center left) and Tara Scanlan (second from right) share a laugh in Huff Hall. Both of them obtained their doctoral degrees in sport psychology from the University of Illinois.
Jean Driscoll (center) chats with Dan Gould and Damon Burton, both graduates of the sport psychology program at Illinois who went on to successful careers in the field.
Bill Goodman (center) retired associate dean for administration at the College of AHS, tours former Illinois sport psychology students and faculty around Huff Gym.
Chris Tamas, the current coach of the Illinois volleyball squad, speaks to former sport psychology students and faculty in Huff Gym.
Jean Driscoll shows off the wall of Distinguished Alumni Award winners from the College of Applied Health Sciences.
Former Illinois sport psychology students and faculty sit in one of the new Huff Hall classrooms. The space used to be part of the Huff Gym indoor pool.
A reunion of sport psychology faculty and students at Illinois brought the guests inside and outside Huff Hall, where much of the early research into their field took place.
Former Illinois sport psychology faculty and students walk up the ramp of the Khan Annex, an addition to Huff Hall that opened in 2011.
Glyn Roberts (center) points to the wall of deans of the College of Applied Health Sciences.
Don Hardin (right), adjunct instructor at AHS and former women's volleyball head coach, talks about the history of Huff Hall with former sport psychology students and faculty.
The sport psychology tour stops by the Freer Hall gym, used for research purposes.
Former sport psychology students and faculty tour the basement labs of Freer Hall.
The enthusiasm of Illinois sport psychologists was clearly infectious. After a couple years teaching physical education, Diane Gill attended a conference at Brockport, New York, where she got to hear both Dan Landers and Rainer Martens speak about their research at Illinois. By her first semester in Urbana-Champaign, Gill was in Martens’ class “Social Psychology and Physical Activity,” where his first doctoral student, Tara Scanlan, was teaching assistant.
“Taking that course, immediately I thought, ‘this is the area I’d like to be in,’” Gill said.
She soon worked with the pair on their competitive anxiety research, and later studied competitiveness and athletes’ “achievement orientation,” or drive to improve and accomplish goals within their sport, along with a host of other topics in the field.
“Illinois was the place to be if you wanted to be in sport psychology,” she said.
Gill is newly retired, having spent more than 30 years as a professor of kinesiology at University of North Carolina, Greensboro after obtaining her master’s and Ph.D. at Illinois.
(“My doctoral students are retiring,” said Martens, now 82. “That makes me really old.”)
Physical activity—whether it’s high-level athletics or recess play—is all one field.
Diane Gill
Professor Emerita of Kinesiology, UNC Greensboro
Julie Martens, née Simon, was accepted into the program in 1973, coming to Illinois specifically to study with Rainer. (They would get married nearly 20 years later).
“[Tara Scanlan and Diane] had an office out at the Children’s Research Center right next to Rainer’s. As I got to know them, we used to be out there every evening. They said, “Come on out, you can study at night with us,’” Julie said. “That’s how I got involved with meeting the other students, then I got an assistantship and got where I wanted to be.”
The scientists would run experiments, hop over to the nearby cafeteria in the Adler Mental Health building for lunch and sketch out ideas for new research designs on napkins. Those early days were “invigorating,” Martens said.
By 1980, U. of I. was the premier place of study for sport psychology, alongside Penn State. They had turned the topic into a formal graduate program, and the field was continuing to blossom. In 1979, Dan Landers and Rainer co-founded the Journal of Sport Psychology, where Landers was the inaugural editor-in-chief.
As the field grew in relevance, new pathways opened up and Illinois sport psychology spread across the country. Sport psychology got a “big break” when the Olympic Training Committee allowed athletes to be advised by professionals who weren’t clinicians or psychiatrists, Roberts said—sport psychologists could now help athletes develop strategies to perform under extreme stressors.
“The U. of I. was very special. And the thing that stuck with me was we attracted such good students. We generated a reputation, and students wanted to come here from all over the world,” Roberts said. “We didn’t realize it, but we were pioneers.”
‘No better program in the world’
Between visits to their old labs and offices, the sport psychology legends visited classrooms in Huff Hall where there used to be a swimming pool, and walked on floors of Freer Hall that were once open air.
“In Freer and Huff, things have changed, which is good in many ways. You wouldn’t want the same stuff you had 50 years ago,” Gill said.
Over the weekend, the sport psychology crew took the 40-minute drive to Allerton Park in Monticello, where they hosted the nation’s first conference in sport psychology: the North American Society for Psychology of Sport and Physical Activity (NASPSPA) in 1973.
Several of them later served as executives and presidents of the society. The first conference also planted the seeds for Human Kinetics, the Champaign-based publisher of sport and exercise science founded by Martens and his first wife, Marilyn.
Though a formal sport psychology program no longer exists at Illinois, the field has expanded and evolved. The Department of Health and Kinesiology continues to study the psychological aspects and benefits of physical activity.
Rainer Martens speaks to his former Sport Psychology colleagues, and the current-day faculty of Health and Kinesiology.
“I think of it as one field. Physical activity—whether it’s high-level athletics or recess play—is all one field,” Gill said.
After walking through their old stomping grounds, the group met with current-day faculty and students of Health and Kinesiology for lunch in Freer Hall.
“This was the group that got sport psychology a foothold in this country,” said HK Professor Steve Petruzzello, who runs the college’s Exercise Psychophysiology Laboratory. “It’s wonderful to see these folks back here, to see their eyes light up as they’re walking around the halls, seeing spaces that look familiar and some that are completely unfamiliar.”
What remains from this era of sport psychology, and even the early days of Athletic Research Laboratory, are questions on the relationship between physical activity and psychology—including personality, stress, cognitive factors and affect, or feeling states.
“Faculty currently study these kinds of topics in older adults and children, in diverse populations, and in more specialized groups like tactical athletes,” Petruzzello said. “So really, the pioneering work of Coleman Griffith at Illinois over 100 years ago has evolved and developed into what it is today.”
Before heading off, the sport psychologists dispensed career advice with some of the rising graduate students and faculty. Linda Harrison obtained her Ph.D. from the program in 1987—she opted to go into the publishing industry instead of academia, but she credits her time at Illinois for developing her abilities to think and ask questions.
“The grad students all benefited from the historic founding fathers of sport psychology and the scholars who picked up the torch to carry the program to the next level,” Harrison said. “I am sure there was no better program in the world than the one offered at U. of I.”
Editor’s note:
To reach Ethan Simmons, email ecsimmon@illinois.edu The College of Applied Health Sciences and Illinois Division of Intercollegiate Athletics are celebrating 100 years of Huff Hallthis fall.
The Chez Veterans Center showed an increase in military-connected student engagement in the first year after implementing a comprehensive case management model.
The Chez Veterans Center has refocused on more individualized care
The number of unique students Chez served increased by 25.89%, meaning that the center had expanded its reach to more students while focusing on more targeted, individualized care. Andy Bender, director of operations and services at Chez, said that the focus of this initiative was putting the person back into what they do.
“What do we need to do in order to connect with the students on a human level and show them that we care and we really are interested in their success?” Bender said.
The initiative was spearheaded by Ingrid Wheeler, Chez’s assistant director for behavioral health programs, who took the concept of the new model and made it into a practical application. Wheeler said that the shift began with questions like the one above, and evolved over time through the pandemic and as the Veteran population changed.
Her background in social work and case management helped her recognize that “a more individualized plan has to be in place to really support the ever-changing needs,” she said. “It’s about seeing it through a different lens that maybe we wouldn’t have if we weren’t seeing them as an individual.”
Cheryl Hanley-Maxwell, dean of College of Applied Health Sciences, was also part of conversations from the beginning, said Bender. She has been supportive of Chez’s mission shift and provided resources and knowledge about transition. Additionally, the Chez team said that student feedback, through their conversations with staff, was another part of shaping the new model.
Bender said that a September 2023 visit from Samuel Skinner, an alum and former White House chief of staff, had prompted the team to look more deeply into how Chez was caring for students. Previous to this shift, Bender said the way things were run wasn’t wrong, but that this mission change is a new approach to making a more powerful impact.
“A lot of our things were based on transactional services,” Bender said. “It was reliant on the student identifying that they have a problem and identifying a source for relief of that challenge. Often what would happen is the student would come in, they’d get the help, and then we’d never see the student again.”
Chez still provides those transactional services, such as assistance with Veteran benefits, resume writing and counseling, but now with an emphasis on continuing to check in with students. Chez documented 1,287 case management encounters this past year, ranging from quick check-ins to intensive support sessions.
Another aspect of the mission change was assessing what might be barriers for students and providing them with resources before they run into those barriers.
“Now we’re reaching out to students individually several times throughout the semester to really pull them in and have those conversations of ‘What’s brought you to campus? What are your goals?’” Wheeler said. “We can connect them to different resources, whether it be in the center or on campus, versus ‘Oh, you came to orientation—here’s a couple of pamphlets with everything on campus. Good luck!’”
What do we need to do in order to connect with the students on a human level and show them that we care and we really are interested in their success?
Andy Bender
Chez Veterans Center director of operations and services
She also said that Chez has been making sure that its own staff is equipped to answer the main areas that many students have questions about, such as resume review, so that students aren’t bounced around as much.
John Goeken is an electrical engineering undergraduate student and a former Marine and combat Veteran. Goeken’s first interaction with the Chez Veterans Center was through the Warrior’s Scholar Project, a “boot camp” started in 2022 for military-connected students to reacquaint themselves with the classroom environment.
“The hospitality that they had for us for that program for each student—they were willing to go out of their way and make sure we were accommodated,” Goeken said. “It was just above and beyond the reception you get as a Veteran anywhere else.”
Goeken recalled the first time that he spoke to Wheeler—he said he was just blowing off steam about difficulties adjusting during his first semester, including figuring out childcare.
“I’m just venting all this stuff, and she’s taking all these mental notes and literally follows up with me on an email that day an hour or two later with a list of resources for me to investigate,” Goeken said. “That was huge. I still have the list, too.”
Goeken said that he didn’t realize how much stress can compound, especially with the loss of structure and support that came with being in the military.
“But Chez helps fill that gap with knowledge, hospitality and resources,” Goeken said. “It hasn’t been any grand gesture, but it’s been all these little incremental things.”
Another student-Veteran, Jacob Means, is a social work student and a former Chez resident advisor. He said the biggest service Chez has done was connect him with the community.
“The biggest thing for me was the people,” Means said. “It’s hard to connect with people in class. With Chez, you’re immediately ingrained in this really welcoming community of people that are very excited to have you there and that understand you, which is super hard in college.”
Means also said that a benefit of living right above the CVC was the close access to all of Chez’s resources.
“It takes people like me, who were scared and alone and didn’t know what to do, and it empowers them and it gives them all this ability to feel able to say, OK, I can leave this housing and understand what’s going on now,’” Means said.
With the new model, the Chez team said its focus is to improve and develop what it is doing, which often means taking into account military-connected student feedback.
Goeken suggested more resources with specifics to different colleges, as well as Chez taking a more proactive role in encouraging Veterans to access the benefits available to them.
“There are so many resources out there, but Veterans like myself often don’t know what’s available, or how to stay informed,” Goeken said. “If Chez could expand its outreach or offer low-pressure education around available benefits, through peer support, onboarding, or regular updates, I think it could make a real and lasting impact.”
Even with the increase in quantitative data of this year’s engagement, Bender said success isn’t defined by numbers.
“I want the success to be more about how the student defines their success,” Bender said. “Again, every student is different and everyone has a different idea. If we’re going to put humans back at the center of all we do, then the numbers can’t be the most important—it has to be the feedback they give us on their success and if they feel like they’ve achieved their own goals.”
Georgia Malandraki earned her Ph.D. from the University of Illinois in 2008. (Photo provided)
The College of Applied Health Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Georgia A. Malandraki as the new head of the Department of Speech and Hearing Science, effective January 2026. Dr. Malandraki brings with her an exceptional record of scholarly achievement, clinical innovation and academic leadership that will advance the department’s mission in education, research and service.
Dr. Malandraki succeeds Dr. Pamela Hadley as department head, who was appointed department head in 2020. Dr. Hadley will continue serving as the Charles and Kay Stenberg Endowed Professor in Disability Research.
“Since earning my Ph.D. in Speech and Hearing Science from Illinois in 2008, I have been fortunate to have a deeply fulfilling career—one that has been profoundly shaped by the training and mentorship I received during my doctoral years,” Malandraki said. “It is an incredible honor to return to my alma mater to serve as head of SHS. As I step into this role, I am beyond humbled and filled with excitement.
“I follow in the footsteps of professor and current head, Dr. Pamela Hadley, whose compassionate leadership and dedication have strengthened the department through growth and challenges, including during the pandemic. I first met Dr. Hadley during my final year as a doctoral student, and her warmth and generosity have left a lasting impression—one she has carried into her impactful tenure as head. I am deeply grateful for her example and the foundation that she, along with her distinguished predecessors, has built. As I take on this role, I do so with humility, gratitude, and a strong commitment to inclusive excellence, innovation, and collaboration. I look forward to working alongside the exceptional SHS faculty, students, and staff, and under the inspiring leadership of AHS Dean Cheryl Hanley-Maxwell, as we continue to advance impactful research, education, and service in the field of communication sciences and disorders at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Go Illini!”
Dr. Malandraki joins the University of Illinois from Purdue University, where she served as a professor in the Department of Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences, with a courtesy appointment in the Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering. At Purdue, she directed the I-EaT Swallowing Research Laboratory and Clinic and played a pivotal role in interdisciplinary research and education focused on the neural mechanisms of swallowing function.
Dr. Malandraki earned her Ph.D. at the University of Illinois in 2008 after earning her master’s at Ohio University and her undergraduate degree from the Technological Educational Institute of Patras, Greece.
An internationally recognized expert in dysphagia, Dr. Malandraki is a certified speech-language pathologist, a board-certified specialist in swallowing and swallowing disorders, and a Fellow of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA). Her groundbreaking work has focused on the development of neurophysiologically driven interventions and telehealth solutions to expand access to care for individuals with swallowing disorders, particularly in underserved populations.
Dr. Malandraki is a founding member of the Purdue CEREBBRAL Center and a faculty associate with the Purdue Center for Aging and the Life Course. Her contributions to the field have earned her numerous accolades, including the NIH NIBIB R21 Trailblazer Award in 2019, the Purdue Early Career Research Achievement Award, and the 2021 ASHA Fellowship. Her team also received the 2021 Editor’s Award from the Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research (JSLHR), and she was honored with the 2022 Honors of the Indiana Speech-Language-Hearing Association.
In addition to her research accomplishments, Dr. Malandraki is widely respected for her commitment to excellence in teaching. Since joining Purdue in 2014, she has been recognized with eight departmental teaching awards and received the 2018 Patsy J. Mellott Teaching Innovation Award from Purdue’s College of Health and Human Sciences.
“We are thrilled to welcome Dr. Malandraki to the University of Illinois,” said Cheryl Hanley-Maxwell, dean of the College of Applied Health Sciences. “Her visionary leadership, collaborative spirit and unwavering dedication to advancing the science and practice of communication and swallowing disorders make her an ideal choice to lead our Department of Speech and Hearing Science into its next chapter.”
Dr. Pamela Hadley joined the Department of Speech and Hearing Science in AHS in 2007 and has been department head since 2021. A tireless advocate for the groundbreaking work of SHS colleagues past and present, Dr. Hadley somehow found the time for an energetic interview on a sunny September afternoon.
‘We have such a great group of remarkable scientists who are really committed to rigor in their research,’ Department Head Pamela Hadley said. (Photo by Ethan Simmons)
Q: This year’s deeper dives into the history of the Department of Speech and Hearing Science at the University of Illinois have been fascinating. Was there anything in any of these explorations that surprised you, even in your role as the department’s head?
A: Oh, absolutely. For example, I didn’t know how instrumental faculty at the University of Illinois had been in the development of the ASHA [American Speech-Language-Hearing Association] journals. The field continues to grapple, even today, with how to disseminate scientific findings.
There also are many discussions about opening up access to science, especially those things that are federally funded by taxpayer dollars. The internet and social media have fundamentally changed the number of options for sharing scientific findings and clinical resources with the public. That’s something that, looking forward, we will continue to work through. With regard to the SHS at 50 stories, it was really important for me to appreciate the role that Illinois faculty had in the development of those early journals at the very beginning.
Q: What are some topics you would have liked to explore for this series if we’d had more time?
A: Something we talked about early on was exploring paradigm shifts in the field. There are individuals from Illinois who were responsible for changing the way in which our field approached clinical practice. Some of those researchers include Dean Emerita Tanya Gallagher and Carol Prutting, who were mentored by Tom Shriner Jr. in the 1970s. Together they were responsible for bringing the pragmatics revolution into the field of speech-language pathology and establishing the subfield of clinical pragmatics, focused on how language is used in conversational interactions.
Another example: Elaine Paden and Ph.D. student Barbara Hodson contributed to a paradigm shift in how we treat young children’s speech-sound disorders. They were instrumental in shifting the field toward treating classes of sounds to improve the intelligibility of young children’s speech more efficiently. That was a huge paradigm shift.
Professor Emerita Adrienne Perlman was an advocate for expanding the speech-language pathology scope of practice to include dysphagia, or swallowing disorders. When I was a clinical student, swallowing wasn’t part of our scope of practice yet! Now it’s such a fundamental aspect of medical SLPs’ role in hospitals and skilled nursing facilities in particular.
Finally, it would have been wonderful to highlight major research projects throughout the history of the department, such as the Illinois International Stuttering Research Project that was led by Professor Emeritus Ehud Yairi.
Q: What’s impressed you the most about the department’s growth and development since you joined the faculty?
A: I’m so impressed with my faculty colleagues. We have such a great group of remarkable scientists who are really committed to rigor in their research. They hold themselves and their students to high standards, and at the same time, they’re just truly wonderful people who’ve been so committed to delivering high-quality instruction through some really unprecedented times. I admire their resilience. I enjoy their company. In short, I’m just really proud to lead this department.
Q: What are some new areas in this field that recent graduates, current students, and students who will join you in the next few years have, or will have, the expertise to address as they move into their careers?
A: Telehealth is a professional area that has really expanded rapidly in the last three years. Prior to COVID-19, students weren’t trained to assess or treat via telehealth at all. It was considered to be an advanced clinical skill and not something that students would be expected to learn until they had years of clinical practice under their belt.
During the stay-at-home mandates, telehealth became a lifeline, and it caused our professional bodies to reconsider whether this was an essential skill that all our students in training needed to have. We also had many research projects that were required to pivot to remote data collection. Students today are far more advanced in their knowledge and skills in this area, and they are better prepared to conduct research and deliver clinical services remotely than prior graduates.
Q: Let’s talk a bit more about the department’s Audiology and Speech-Language Pathology Clinic. You’ve referred to it as the “crown jewel” of the department’s community outreach efforts. How would you like to see the clinic evolve?
A: This summer we had a public meeting as part of a follow-up, in-person site visit from our accreditation body, and a number of individuals who received services from our clinic and their family members attended the meeting. They just raved to the site visitors about the services that they were receiving and the impact of those services on their well-being and quality of life. To hear that kind of feedback from the families that we serve just means everything—it’s so essential to what we’re trying to accomplish in terms of our public engagement and outreach, and it’s testimony to how critically important communication skills are to participation in everyday activities. That encapsulates why I’ve referred to the clinic as a “crown jewel.”
I’d really like to see the clinic expand its sphere of influence beyond the Urbana-Champaign community. My dream for the clinic would be for it to be a center of excellence, particularly for families in rural communities that may not have access to state-of-the-science resources in their local communities. Also, it would be my hope that we could bring individuals here for comprehensive assessments and develop the types of support those families might need for ongoing care, and then maintain that contact through telehealth with educators or health care providers in their local communities. I think that that could be really powerful.
Q: We’ve established through these stories that the SHS faculty at Illinois have been pioneers in the research, and they’ve been leaders in their profession since the beginning. Will these stories serve as inspiration for future activities? Where do you think this department can lead your disciplines in the future?
A: I think these stories helped us bring history alive and explored some topics in a more conversational way than reading a review of the history of the department. What I most hope, though, is that these stories provide our students and faculty with a strong sense of where they come from and, really, a deeper appreciation of the fact they’re standing on the shoulders of giants—pioneers who really established the profession and were influential from the beginning.
Where do I think SHS will lead the discipline in the future? I envision SHS faculty and students contributing to innovations in health technology, including the use of that technology to improve treatment options, and evaluating how different design features might promote people’s use of those technologies and what new technologies are desired. Those health technologies could include how we are designing and developing hearing aids, which treatments best fit an individual’s cognitive profiles and communication needs, how we interact with augmentative and alternative communication devices, how we use speech recognition devices, or how we use different kinds of technologies to age in place successfully. Technology has moved really quickly just in the last year. So the next 50 years? It’s hard to imagine where we’ll be!
For more on the 50th anniversary of SHS at Illinois, check out our stories at ahs.illinois.edu/shs-50.
Revamped online degrees are expected to expand the accessibility of AHS programs worldwide, reaching new students from underrepresented and nontraditional backgrounds
RST interim department head Bill Stewart, left, chats with MHA director Lynne Barnes and MPH director Pedro Hallal (Photo by Ethan Simmons)
Three master’s programs in the College of Applied Health Sciences are undergoing transformations for the digital age.
After receiving a $2.035 million award from the University of Illinois Investment for Growth program, AHS faculty, administrators and industry partners will collaborate to create online versions of the Master of Public Health and Master of Health Administration degrees. Additionally, the Master of Recreation, Sport and Tourism online degree will be restructured into three specialized programs: recreation and park management, sport management and administration, and tourism and event management.
The revamped online degrees are expected to expand the accessibility of AHS programs worldwide, reaching new students from underrepresented and nontraditional backgrounds.
“Going global has been a priority of this university for years,” said Pedro Hallal, Alvin M. and Ruth L. Sandall professor in the Department of Kinesiology and Community Health and director of the MPH program. “So now going global is a priority of this program as well.”
The addition of “stackable certificates” across each discipline will attract nontraditional students looking to boost their knowledge as well as mid-career professionals seeking expertise in their chosen industry.
Each program is committed to including new voices in their online instructional material, mainly experienced professionals working in the respective fields.
“It’ll be a nice blend,” said Lynne Barnes, the longtime top Carle Foundation Hospital administrator who was hired as director of the MHA program this fall. “We’ll have professors who really understand the knowledge base of the field, and we’ll also have clinical people who are working in the field doing the teaching, just like we do for the in-person program.”
The creation of new online master’s degree formats will start with collaboration with AHS’ online learning team. The online MPH program and restructured RST online master’s degrees will begin enrolling students in fall 2025; the online MHA program will debut in fall 2026.
“We’re taking the ‘growth’ term very seriously,” said Professor Bill Stewart, interim department head for RST. “This is a long-term investment for us, not just a one-off thing.”
MPH: ‘The perfect storm’ for growth
To populations around the globe, the COVID-19 pandemic was a clarion call to the vital importance of public health infrastructure.
The awakening clearly reached young people pondering their life paths: According to data from the Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health, applications to public health graduate degree programs increased 40 percent from 2020 to 2021.
“It’s so much easier now to choose a career related to public health,” said KCH Associate Professor Andi Schwingel, who is working alongside Hallal in developing the online coursework.
“Going global has been a priority of this university for years. So now going global is a priority of this program as well.”
Pedro Hallal
HK Professor, director of the MPH program
For the University of Illinois’ MPH program, the decision to create an online program is also a matter of maturity, Hallal said. Four years have elapsed since the program obtained accreditation from the Council on Education for Public Health.
“Some people in your neighborhood will add a security camera, and you don’t think it’s important until your house gets robbed, and then you see, ‘Oh, I needed that camera,’” Hallal said. “I think that is exactly what happened with public health.
“It was the perfect storm for our time to grow.”
The work ahead will be rigorous, with 20-plus courses awaiting development. Faculty plan to work with external partners, such as public health professionals, to create new course content. And it will be suited to the future landscape of public health, Hallal said: How might climate change and global warming transform health needs? How can we address the coexistence of infectious diseases with chronic conditions, like hypertension and diabetes?
A target for the MPH online expansion is the non-traditional student population. The MPH program will offer six certificates: epidemiology, biostatistics, public health, one health, physical activity and health and health promotion.
“It’s the time for us to reach nontraditional students, we feel ready for it,” Schwingel said. “We want to keep the rigor, the quality that we’ve been giving students in their residential program to the online space as well.”
MHA: Making health administration accessible
The MHA program at Illinois is designed to prepare students for leadership in the healthcare industry.
What the MHA program has recently observed, according to KCH Assistant Professor Mina Raj, is an influx of requests for an online equivalent, especially among mid-career healthcare administrators.
“The pandemic has made salient how important the healthcare system is, and how important it is to have administrators who can respond to public health emergencies and other unpredictable situations,” Raj said.
The overriding goal for the online degree is accessibility, Raj said: What material can be packaged into a four-week or eight-week course? The MHA online degree will offer three professional certificates: health finance, healthcare quality and health informatics.
“I think for this group of professionals it’s really about giving them the context and rationale behind why certain decisions are made as administrators or within a healthcare organization, as well as the tools to anticipate the impacts or consequences of various administrative decisions,” Raj said. “We have faculty with different expertise, different professional backgrounds, and everyone is excited to teach these courses.”
The work has already begun for Barnes, who wants to incorporate seasoned industry experts into course content. Barnes came to the university after retiring from a 45-year career at Carle Foundation Hospital.
“I hope to use real clinicians, people doing the work like at Christie Clinic, Carle and OSF Healthcare to be part of the lectures, so that the students who are online, all over the world and all over the United States experience instruction through people who are actually doing the work,” Barnes said.
RST: Degrees for specialized industries
The Department of Recreation, Sport and Tourism has been a leader in online education, debuting the first online master’s program in the discipline back in 2008.
But there wasn’t much fanfare, Stewart said. Online degrees were seen as “second-class programs” two decades ago.
“We were there at the beginning of the front to move online learning into a respectable degree process of education,” Stewart said.
Today, recreation, sport and tourism combine for an estimated $90 billion global set of industries. The pandemic resulted in a surge of public interest in leisure time and nature exploration, opening up new opportunities for professionals in the field, Stewart said.
“[RST] is about what we do in our free time to extend who we are and add value to our lives,” Stewart said. “We’ve come to embrace our needs for leisure-time activities in the last two years in ways that enhance our well-being and nurture our souls.”
The upcoming split of the current online master’s program into three tracks is a response to internal and external trends. Enrollment in the online MS in RST has plateaued in recent years, while other institutions have introduced their own online degrees in the discipline.
Online degrees were seen as “second-class programs” two decades ago, but no longer, said Bill Stewart, center. (Photo by Ethan Simmons)
Meanwhile, the demands of the industry have become more specialized over time.
“There’s still a need for the generalist degree, but because of the growth, we are finding professionals out there who need more help with the specialty,” Stewart said.
Students and mid-career professionals will be able to enroll in a new slate of RST certificates in high-demand topics, including inclusive design, agricultural tourism, sport analytics, e-sport administration, and diversity, equity and inclusion.
The department is in the process of searching for a director of the RST online program, Stewart said, while tapping into a vast network of alumni to help develop new course content.
“Our alumni value the friends and faculty they came to know as students and find various ways to give back to the department,” Stewart said. “Many of our alums are leading remarkable careers in contexts related to recreation, sport and tourism; they readily share their expertise through assistance in course development, guest lectures, creating internship opportunities for our current students, and in some cases, teaching classes for us.
“Our students come here because they care about making people feel better, their well-being, their sense of community and health. They want to give back to the community and they want to give back to the department that gave them this path in life.”
The College of Applied Health Sciences featured students in its annual magazine, Moving Forward: Emmanuel Dubure, left, Byron Juma and Jemimah Bakare, right. (Photo by Michelle Hassel)
In its 2020-2025 strategic plan, the College of Applied Health Sciences makes a commitment to improving the access and affordability of its programs and reducing barriers that have historically limited individual opportunity.
For international students, the prospect of pursuing degrees in the United States can be both alluring and daunting. While the U.S. system of higher education is widely regarded as among the best in the world, the expense of moving overseas, securing required visas, learning a new language in some cases and adapting to a new culture can be overwhelming. One way to increase educational opportunities for both international and U.S.-based students is to offer degree programs and professional certificates online.
Currently, AHS offers a master’s degree and professional certificate in recreation, sport and tourism online, as well as a certificate of professional development in information accessibility design and policy. Efforts are underway to create two new online degree programs in the Department of Kinesiology and Community Health, the Master of Public Health and the Master of Health Administration. In addition, the online master’s degree in RST will be restructured into three specialized degrees. Each new program also will offer online certificates that focus on professional skills that are in demand. For example, non-degree students and other professionals can take advantage of the college’s expertise in public health and health administration by pursuing certificates in epidemiology, biostatistics, public health, physical activity and health, health promotion, health finance, healthcare quality and health informatics.
Cheryl Hanley-Maxwell, dean of AHS, said the college is always happy to welcome students to campus but recognizes the challenge residential learning poses for many.
“We have incredible, internationally renowned scholars on our faculty and degree and research programs that are exceptional and visionary,” she said. “We want to continue our leadership in health and health-related education by sharing our outstanding resources with a global audience.”
According to the Investment for Growth proposal submitted by the college, the online MPH program could begin enrolling students by year three of the process, while the MHA program is expected to enroll students by the fourth year. As far as the RST plan, following two years of redesign, the department plans to enroll students by year three.
In 2023, the College of Applied Health Sciences chose four AHS graduates to receive alumni awards. These awards serve as a testament to the unwavering dedication and great contributions of our graduates.
Dean Cheryl Hanley-Maxwell, left, stands with alumni award winners Michael Leach, Saul Morse and Walter Johnson. William Haskell was unable to attend the ceremony. (Photo by Jerry Thompson)
Young Alumni Award Michael Leach Recreation, Sport and Tourism
Michael Leach was appointed as the first-ever chief diversity and inclusion director for the White House in January of 2021. Leach, who earned his bachelor’s degree from RST in 2009, spent more than five years working for the National Football League on the NFL Management Council and later worked for the Chicago Bears and Miami Dolphins.
“I am truly humbled and honored to receive the 2023 Young Alumni Award from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign,” Leach said. “My time in the College of Applied Health Sciences, and the institution more broadly, was nothing short of transformative.”
Harold Scharper Award Saul Morse Disability Resources and Educational Services
Saul Morse earned his bachelor’s degree (1969) and law degree (1972) at the University of Illinois and since has focused his practice on legislative matters, health law, insurance and municipal law. In 2010, with the passage of the Affordable Care Act, Morse was asked by the Illinois Department of Insurance to establish and manage an insurance pool for individuals with pre-existing health conditions.
“The Harold Scharper award is of great importance to me,” Morse said. “I came to the University of Illinois as a 17-year-old freshman. At the time, no other university in this country had a program which fully included students with a disability in all aspects of campus life, from academics to housing to activities. Most of what I have been able to do personally, professionally and within the broader community is due to the DRES program of the college.”
Distinguished Alumni Award William Haskell Kinesiology and Community Health
William Haskell is an internationally renowned researcher and emeritus professor of medicine at Stanford University. Haskell earned his Ph.D. in exercise physiology from the University of Illinois in 1966, and his work and achievements have clearly fulfilled the Illinois mission.
“It is truly an honor to receive the Distinguished Alumni award,” Haskell said. “Attending the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign offered me the opportunity to study and work with a large range of outstanding faculty and students, many of whom became exceptional leaders in exercise science research and teaching, as well as lifelong colleagues and friends.”
Walter Johnson Recreation, Sport and Tourism
Walt Johnson was born in Watseka, Ill., and graduated from the University of Illinois in 1958 with an undergraduate degree from the RST program. Later he entered the graduate program in RST and had the privilege of learning from both Professor Charles Brightbill and Dr. Alan Sapora. Upon graduation from the RST master’s program in 1962, Johnson moved immediately into a career in parks and recreation, where he served in a number of key leadership positions.
“The University of Illinois has always been the reason for my success and the lifestyle I live today,” Johnson said. “It gave me knowledge, hope and encouragement. Growing up on a farm and spending hours on a John Deere tractor since age 8, and milking cows, planting, cultivating and raising cattle and pigs, I determined I did not want to be a farmer.”
Now-retired Joe Rank is helping sustain a campus resource he could’ve used as a military veteran who returned for further education: the Chez Veterans Center
Now retired, Joe Rank, left, is using his time to help support the Chez Veterans Center. (Photo provided)
By fall 1965, the conflict between North and South Vietnam had escalated, as had the United States’ military involvement. With the draft looming, Urbana teenager Joe Rank, newly enrolled at the University of Illinois, joined the Naval ROTC unit at the advice of one of his fraternity brothers a year after reserve officer training was no longer compulsory.
After four years as an undergraduate student majoring in advertising, Rank was deployed to Vietnam, where his responsibilities included pinging enemy submarines and managing gunners aboard the destroyer USS Lyman K. Swenson and the cruiser USS England.
Following his three-year tour, Rank returned to the university and embarked on several career journeys. He taught new cohorts of reserve officers, helmed a $20 million Navy advertising campaign, and developed two decades of relationships at the University of Illinois Alumni Association.
“If anybody 55 years ago said, ‘You’re going to make a career of the Navy,’ I would’ve told them they were absolutely crazy,” Rank said. “All of life’s twists and turns, I couldn’t have planned it.”
The retired Rank, now 76, is helping sustain a campus resource he could’ve used as a military veteran who returned for further education: the Chez Veterans Center.
“Joe is a bridge between the university’s deep history in the veteran community and what the future can be,” said Chez Director of Operations Andy Bender. “Joe has the passion for this work, being able to take the things we need and then bringing in the support to do it.”
“They’ve got a clear mission now to serve all veterans,” Rank said of the Chez Center. “Veterans bring diversity to the campus.”
Rank, who lives in Urbana with his wife, Pam, has strong ties with his identities as an Illinois alumnus and veteran. While visiting the Vietnam Memorial Wall, Rank made a charcoal rubbing of the etched name of Marine Corps 2nd Lt. David Skibbe, a fellow Illinois Naval ROTC officer who died during a mission in 1970.
When he returned from Vietnam, Rank became an instructor for Illinois ROTC classes, earning the title of assistant professor of naval science while obtaining his master’s degree in advertising.
Three years of 18-hour days in Vietnam made the daily study grind feel easy.
Veterans bring diversity to the campus.
Joe Rank
Illinois alumnus and retired Naval officer
“I was at the library at 8 o’clock in the morning, got my work done by 4 p.m.,” Rank said. “I had that discipline—I got one B in graduate school.”
Rank soon went back to sea, when the Navy did something that “didn’t make much sense” to him at the time: Brought Rank in as director of national advertising for Navy recruiting.
After 20 years of active-duty service, Rank faced the test of reintegrating into civilian life and passed with flying colors. The mission of the Chez Center has connected with him from the start.
While serving as vice president of membership and marketing at the Alumni Association, he was brought into an ad hoc committee to address the vision of Chez, then known as the Center for Wounded Veterans in Higher Education.
“The intent was it would be much like [Disability Resources and Educational Services] was for the World War II vets. It would accommodate severely, profoundly injured military veterans who wanted to come back to college.”
Like DRES, Chez has morphed its service to apply to a wider range of students and staff. On the advisory committee, the word “wounded” was eliminated from the title as Chez became a one-stop shop for military-connected people on campus.
“Originally, it was a welcoming cocoon for people to recreate that military atmosphere and camaraderie. But in reality, the whole idea is to get people comfortable enough with the university and the civilian environment and push them out, get them involved in their major,” Rank said.
“The idea is not to segregate them into a pseudo-military unit, but get them comfortable with what they’re going to experience in civilian life.”
Rank’s support of the Chez Center is multifaceted as both a donor and member of its advisory board.
“He’s a great sounding board for me,” Bender said. “He’s been a part of this project since the very beginning. “He’s a great supporter of us, of the veterans, and of the university at large.”
Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker encouraged University of Illinois students to live and work in his home state
J.B. Pritzker was the invited speaker at the kickoff to the 2024 Sapora Symposium (Photo provided)
If there is one thing Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker knows about, it’s hospitality.
A member of the family that owns the Hyatt hotel chain, Pritzker on Jan. 25 gave the opening remarks for the Sapora Symposium—organized by the Department of Recreation, Sport and Tourism at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign—and implored students to “stay in Illinois.”
“My advice is stay in the state of Illinois because a lot is happening here that is going to be good for your careers,” said the 59-year-old Pritzker. “It’s not just the governor trying to convince you to do something that you don’t want to do. It’s the governor telling you that I have seen a real change in the way this state thinks of itself and the opportunity that exists, particularly in travel and tourism and recreation.”
Pritzker was the invited speaker at the recent kickoff to the Sapora Symposium, a semester-long class that features alumni and other professionals who share insight on current issues in recreation, sport and tourism. This year’s theme, according to instructor Michael Raycraft, a teaching associate professor, is the “important roles for recreation, sport, and tourism agencies in the revival of the economic, social, and environmental dimensions of Chicagoland in the post-pandemic era.”
Among the topics that came up during the discussion with Pritzker—moderated by Raycraft and RST alumni and adjunct faculty member Carmen Rossi—were contemporary issues in parks, tourism and sport and their importance to Illinois’ future.
“Not just because I come from a family that’s been involved in tourism and the hospitality industry, but from a state perspective, it is one of the easiest ways to boost revenues,” Pritzker said.
Pritzker—a Democrat—touted his administration’s recent success in the tourism sphere, primarily securing the Democratic National Convention, slated for Aug. 19-22 at the United Center.
“It is my job to get major conventions to come to the state,” he said. “In politics, it’s like the Super Bowl every four years. It brings 50,000 people, and they’re going to spend weeks on end beforehand, setting up and bringing people in. The delegations are going to fill all the hotels here.
“We won it for a couple of reasons. There are politics involved. But … what mattered most was when (the DNC committee) came here, they were blown away. Because our hotels are in close proximity to one another. Hotels are close to all the places that the convention will take place. And everybody knows summer in Chicago is one of the best things in the world.”
Pritzker ended his remarks by saying the state’s “tourism economy is booming coming out of Covid.”
“My advice to you all is, stay in Illinois because we’re headed in the right direction if you want to be in this economy, in this tourism and recreation world.”
