Speech-Language Institute: A Decade of Success and Growth
Robert Serianni’s father is a builder. Growing up, there was never a time when there weren’t some architectural plans lying around on the family’s dining room table.
So, when he was hired in 2014 by Salus University to build a Speech-Language Pathology (SLP) program and a Speech-Language Institute (SLI) from the ground up, Serianni had a pretty good idea of how that should look.
“I’m comfortable with seeing the building process. Without that, I can’t imagine that we would have been able to do it,” he said.
And that’s exactly what he – along with many others – accomplished. This year, the SLP program and its clinical facility proudly celebrate their 10th anniversary, marking a decade of remarkable success, impactful service and continuous growth.
How it Started
There were only two people in the new department when Robert Serianni, MS, CCC-SLP, FNAP, came on board to be chair and program director. Carolyn Mayo, PhD, CCC-SLP, was the inaugural chair of the program, and Christine Lant, MBA, was the administrative assistant.
His sole focus in those early days, he said, was supporting the launch of the program and all its clinical aspects, which included designing the clinical courses and the experiences the students would have throughout their time in the program.
“My first task was to really learn about the methodologies we used – early clinical exposure in the on-campus clinics that already existed at the University - The Eye Institute (TEI) and the Pennsylvania Ear Institute (PEI),” said Serianni. “Given the history of some of the programs that existed here, we were encouraged to develop an on-campus clinic.”
To do that, Serianni began to investigate building an on-campus clinical facility. He visited other institutions in the region to see what their facilities looked like and began meeting with off-campus partners, private practices, and hospitals, to gather information on what worked and what didn’t work.
There was space on the second floor in the North Building of the Elkins Park Campus of what’s now Drexel University that housed law offices whose leases weren’t going to be renewed. That’s where SLI would go.
Serianni stepped into the space and began calculating square footage by counting ceiling and floor tiles; sketching room and storage layouts on grid paper; envisioning the placement of heating, air conditioning, and power outlets; and collaborating with the on-campus architects to bring the plan to life.
“And, then taking what I knew about running a clinic, because that was part of my job before I came on campus, and applying that (to this scenario),” said Serianni. “I was really given a blank slate to create a space where students could learn and patients/clients could receive care.”
The first big obstacle was finances. How would the new clinical facility, which would offer complimentary services to the community while providing SLP students with clinical experience, survive?
Serianni and the University’s then-chief financial officer, Donald Kates, CPA, put together a plan to take to the University’s Board of Trustees that would draw money from SLP student tuition revenue to support the program to sustain the clinic, and the board gave its approval.
The Next Step
It took a year to get everything in place – recruit faculty and clinical educators. The plan was to open the clinic in July 2015 and start seeing clients before the first cohort of students arrived on campus in August 2015.
Serianni brought on Patricia Mayro, MA, CCC-SLP, as a clinical educator and Taylor Evans as office manager, and began seeing clients at SLI. Serianni saw adult clients, and Mayro handled the pediatric clients. “It was very exciting and very nerve-wracking because we certainly realized we were doing something new and had to build it from the ground up,” said Mayro.
With no existing caseload to build upon, the small but determined staff sprang into action to spread the word about the new, free clinic in the region. They actively engaged with the community and did everything they could to drum up business – attending preschool screenings, health fairs, professional organization meetings – seizing every opportunity to raise awareness and establish a local presence in the community.
“We were very dedicated to being a no-charge clinic. That way, it was more accessible to lots of people. But we had to get the word out,” said Mayro.
Continuing to Grow
The roster of clinical educators and faculty grew quickly. Alison “Ali” Finkelstein, MA, CCC-SLP, was one of the first clinical educators to join the team.
“We were all seasoned clinicians coming from different backgrounds. Some of us had expertise with adults, some with pediatrics, and we all just came together and were very excited to begin the journey of teaching incoming graduate students the ropes,” said Finkelstein, who retired in the summer of 2025. “That’s where the rubber meets the road, in the clinic, and we were excited to get that going.”
She added that not only was it a new learning experience for those students in the first cohort, but also for the faculty and staff. A number of the clinical educators were accustomed to working with graduate students completing externships, but this was a different experience. These students were being introduced to their first clinical experience as first-year graduate students in the on-campus clinical setting at SLI.
“The clinical educators knew what the field expected from students, and we prepared the students the best that we could for their externships,” said Finkelstein. “We set the bar high. This isn’t just working in a graduate school clinic, this is preparing you to work in a hospital rehab setting or pediatric setting. Our goal was to teach students how to diagnose and treat the communication needs of individuals across the lifespan while providing the students with a supportive environment for learning.
The First Students
After her undergraduate education, Caitlin Moppert, MS ‘17, decided to take a gap year and apply to various Speech-Language Pathology programs at schools across the country. At the time, getting into an SLP program was very competitive. It was her interview that convinced her the Salus SLP program was the place she wanted to be.
“I felt that Salus was the one place with an interview process that I walked away from knowing that they knew who I was,” said Moppert. “That was a really important piece because when I interviewed at other places, they spent very little time with me and had no idea who I was.”
Moppert had no trepidation about joining a brand-new program in the midst of its creation. The inaugural cohort brought together 24 students from diverse backgrounds, many with valuable real-life experiences. “We weren’t totally green, that’s what set us apart,” said Moppert. “Plus, we were all just grateful to start SLP school and had the chance to follow our dreams. We were the best kind of group of misfits. It felt like Salus took a chance on us, so we took a chance on Salus.”
Not only that, but students in that first cohort also had the opportunity to help build and grow the new program and clinical facility. Moppert was class president and she and her classmates created the bylaws for the Salus chapter of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA). “When we went to the ASHA conference that first year, the program was something we were proud of and we helped write the mission statement for. It gave a piece of ownership to us,” she said.
A Look into the Future
In just three years, the SLP program became accredited, and it hasn’t looked back since. What began with a cohort of 24 students has now grown to an incoming 42 students in the class of 2027. With all funding generated internally, each increase in enrollment fuels additional revenue, driving ongoing growth and continued success.
The one thing Serianni said that keeps him up at night is the competitive environment in higher education for SLP programs in this geographic region. “But we continue to grow to meet the challenge,” he said. “We have an amazing faculty that gets our students ready for that competitive externship market. We send off alumni who are competent, confident speech pathologists who then want to give back to the program.”
He said it is the people involved in the program, faculty, clinical supervisors, staff, and clients, that help make SLI the “crown jewel” of the SLP program.
“When students look back at their time here in the program, they almost always point back to their time in the clinic. This is what they’re going to miss most when they leave it. But it’s people that make it an exceptional experience for the students.”