Reflections on a Wonderful Collaboration: CDF-Sponsored Student Research at the Annual SHAV Conference

Brenda Seal, Ph.D., CCC-SLP, ASHA Fellow, SHAV Fellow, Retiring CDF Trustee October 15, 2025

Learning recently that the 2025 SHAV Board was ending CDF’s sponsorship of student research poster presentations at our annual conference was disappointing. Over the weeks, though, I’ve made time to journey through archival records and discuss SHAV’s decision with our CDF Trustees (many are also previous SHAV Board members). I have reached a positive mindset for this reflective piece: What a wonderful collaboration we have had in support of students in speech-language pathology and audiology. Some history follows with a table showcasing our collaborative journey and student outcomes.

The 2011 SHAV Conference offered hallway space for 3 nervous graduate students to present their research posters. A “winner” was later chosen by anonymous judges who reviewed content. Dr. Lissa Power-deFur (Longwood) expressed a need for more student involvement at SHAV and encouraged me to think about ways the CDF might help. Our President, Pat Dewey, shared with the SHAV Board that CDF would gladly sponsor student research poster competition, and a wonderful professional collaboration was born in 2012.

Over the next 14 years, SHAV’s management firm and elected Board members handled necessary details (e.g., call for student posters, identifying conference room/space/time, providing poster frames and ribbons, determining CEUs, publishing winners’ photos in the SHAV-A-GRAM, etc.). Likewise, CDF volunteer Board members handled necessary details (e.g., screening student entries for authorship and university sponsorship; identifying and assigning judges; monitoring and tightening competitive criteria; receiving and distributing posters for judging; offering financial awards to the selected winners and submitting winners’ photos and write-ups to the CDF website and SHAV-A-GRAM). Growth over the years (see attached table) brought us to 2024 and 2025 with two 60-minute time slots and redacted online poster entries judged blindly for content before and during the actual conference. From start to finish these 14 years, we’ve talked to each other, CDF Trustees and SHAV Board officers. Generous and ongoing communication enabled an annual commitment to collaborative support of student research and a strong student presence at the SHAV conference.

The attached table represents the product of this wonderful collaboration. At least 355 students (some records failed to show all authors on a poster) from 11 different universities have offered 234 posters over the past 14 years. At least 35 different professionals, mostly CDF members and invited professionals across the state and D.C., have served as judges; and the CDF has awarded $10,500 to the poster winners and attending students. The exuberance as we awarded the judges’ carefully selected winners at the close of these sessions has been, well, to me it’s been so professionally satisfying.  

I’ve attended (and presented at) different state conferences over many years. Not one has had what we have had these 14 years in Virginia—visible evidence of collegial collaboration for student research support. It’s been a wonderful journey!