Living a Life of Service

Dr. Carol (Emrick ’65) Westby

As a high school junior, Carol was asked to take a test that would qualify her to attend science camp at Geneva College. Much to her surprise, she passed and was offered a scholarship to attend the camp that was an initiative of Dr. Roy Adams. She was one of two girls and 13 boys to attend the camp that summer, and was asked to return the following year to join the only other girl attending. These experiences encouraged her to attend Geneva, and as the child of a single mother with a third-grade education, Carol recognizes that the scholarship and camps opened doors that changed the course of her life.

Carol entered Geneva as a chemistry major. Then, after taking Dr. Norman Carson's class, she changed her major to English and earned her bachelor’s degree. But in Marion Gilmore’s speech pathology courses, she found the opportunity to combine her love of science and English. With encouragement from her professors, she applied and was accepted to grad school at the University of Iowa, where she earned an M.A. as well as a Ph.D. in Speech Pathology.

Carol went on to work for the University at Albany, State University of New York. As a result of looking for ways to get involved in her community there, she found Unity House. The founder of the organization developed and provided a wide variety of social services for persons in poverty and persons with disabilities, including early intervention services. Carol has made her life's work to provide services that include early childhood education, literacy and cultural issues within education. She also has a passion for writing grants that enable learners from children to college students.

Carol is a fellow of the American-Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) and holds Specialty Recognition in Child Language. She has received alumni awards from Geneva College and the University of Iowa's Department of Speech Pathology and Audiology, the ASHA Award for Contributions to Multicultural Affairs, and the Honors of ASHA. She has published and presented nationally and internationally on language-literacy relationships, narrative/expository development and facilitation, assessment and facilitation of written language, metacognition/executive function, and issues in assessment and intervention with culturally/ linguistically diverse populations. She has been principal investigator on a number of clinical service, research, and personnel preparation grants, including Project BRIDGE (Building Reading in Diverse Groups in Education), that prepared graduate students in speech-language pathology to work within classrooms to facilitate language-literacy development of children from Hispanic and Native American backgrounds and Project PLAY (Play and Language Attunement in Young Children) that trained caregivers to increase the quality and frequency of interactions that promote development of theory of mind and language.