Sorority Honors UALR Professor

Dr. Betholyn F. Gentry, a UALR professor of audiology and speech pathology, was honored last week as “A Woman of Excellence” by the Epsilon Phi Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc. last week at the group’s “A Tribute to the African American Woman” ceremony. Earlier this year, Gentry was honored by the nation’s oldest and largest student sponsored conference on audiology and speech-language pathologists, the MidSouth Conference of Communicative Disorders sponsored by the University of Memphis. Gentry, who earned her Ph.D. at UM, won the 2006 Outstanding Alumni Award  at the group’s 36th annual conference. As a graduate of UALR’s speech pathology program, she knows the student’s perspective first-hand. Gentry senses when her students do not understand and responds by breaking down the concepts and helping them process the material. Gentry, a 2003 winner of the UALR 2003 Teaching Excellence Award for Teaching, monitors her student evaluations to see whether changes are needed in her classes. Her teaching style and content have evolved as a direct result of the assessment process. She continues to provide challenging, hands-on activities in her classes that require students to utilize new technology, and she encourages practical and real-world experiences. She extends her teaching skills beyond the classroom by directing graduate student theses and research projects as well as mentoring Ron McNair Scholars. As a highly respected professor in the area of child language disorders, Gentry often serves as a guest speaker on the topic and was elected president of the Arkansas Speech Language Hearing Association by her colleagues across the state.