University News

Quesal Named Fellow of ASHA

August 7, 2009

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MACOMB, IL - - Robert W. Quesal, a professor in the communication sciences and disorders department at Western Illinois University, has been elected a Fellow of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA).

The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association is the professional, scientific and credentialing association for 135,000 members and affiliates who are speech-language pathologists, audiologists and speech, language and hearing scientists in the United States and internationally.

The ASHA website (asha.org/about/awards) states: The ASHA Fellowship recognizes professional or scientific achievement and is given to members who have made outstanding contributions to the professions. The award is one of the highest honors that ASHA can bestow and is retained for life.

Quesal and other individuals elected to ASHA Fellowship will be formally recognized with a presentation of Fellow certificates at the 5:30 p.m. Friday, Nov. 20 awards ceremony during the 2009 ASHA Convention in New Orleans.

A board recognized specialist in fluency disorders, Quesal also holds the Certificate of Clinical Competence in Speech-Language Pathology (CCC-SLP) from ASHA and the Illinois state license in Speech-Language Pathology.

He joined Western Illinois' faculty in 1991 as a teacher and researcher. His primary research is in the area of stuttering focuses on the psychosocial aspects of stuttering, including the speaker's experience of stuttering, as well as teasing and bullying. Quesal is the author or co-author of a number of journal articles and book chapters on stuttering; and he has been a presenter about stuttering at local through international meetings and professional conferences. He also is the recipient of Western's College of Fine Arts and Communication Scholarly Activity Award for 2008-2009.

Quesal serves as an editorial consultant for several professional journals, including the Journal of Fluency Disorders and the American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology. He also served as a site visitor for the Council on Academic Accreditation (CAA) of ASHA from Fall 2000 – Fall 2008, and he began a four-year term on the CAA in January 2009. He was a member of the steering committee for ASHA's Special Interest Division 4 for Fluency and Fluency Disorders from 2002-2004, serving as associate coordinator in 2003 and 2004. He is also an adjunct faculty member at the University of Wyoming.

Quesal has served on numerous University committees including the Council on Assessment of Student Learning (1999-2001), Graduate Council (2000-2003), which he chaired in 2002-2003; Faculty Development (now Center for Innovation in Teaching and Research) Advisory Committee (2003-2006); and the Honors Council (2007-present). He was the CSD program director from 1994-2004 and has served on numerous departmental committees in communication and in communication sciences and disorders.

Previously, Quesal taught at the State University of New York (SUNY) Plattsburgh (1986-1991) and the University of North Dakota (1983-1986), and he was a consulting speech pathologist for a professional health services organization in Murfreesboro, TN (1977-1979).

Quesal earned his bachelor (1976) and master's (1977) degrees in speech and hearing sciences at Indiana University and his Ph.D. (1984) in speech pathology at the University of Iowa.


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