Dear Colleagues and Friends,
The College of Health Professions has new leadership.
After nearly eight years of exemplary leadership and service as dean of the College of Health Professions, Stephen Alway, PhD, is stepping aside from that role, and Dr. Ashley Harkrider, chair of the Department of Audiology and Speech Pathology (ASP), has been named the interim dean.
We are grateful to Dr. Alway, a highly respected educator, researcher, and cherished colleague, for his leadership overseeing progress in the college across many areas. Some of these include increased grant funding for programs and research, contributions to the community with pipeline programs to attract students to careers in health care, expanded academic offerings with the new Pathologists’ Assistant program, and an unprecedented increase in philanthropy to support the college's mission.
Continuing in his tenured appointment as professor in the Department of Physical Therapy and with a joint appointment in the Department of Physiology in the College of Medicine, Dr. Alway will remain as the director of the Center for Muscle, Metabolism, and Neuropathology. Dr. Alway will focus on his innovative and impactful research and on graduate student teaching and mentorship, both areas in which he is renowned for his academic excellence.
Dr. Harkrider, a highly collaborative, inspirational, and accomplished leader, mentor, and researcher, brings a new direction to the College of Health Professions. She has served with distinction for 16 years as chair of the Department of Audiology and Speech Pathology, enabling impressive strategic growth resulting in ASP’s recognition as a Top 25 graduate program by U.S. News & World Report.
In leading a team of 36 faculty, 22 staff, and approximately 300 students annually, Dr. Harkrider has overseen the successful expansion of the department’s degree programs. Further, she has guided the department through multiple accreditation site visits without citation.
In 2024, Dr. Harkrider also led the relocation and consolidation of the department (for the first time in more than 40 years) in a newly renovated, state-of-the-art, 60,000-square-foot educational, clinical, and research facility in Knoxville, where critical and highly specialized health care is delivered to the region.
An accomplished and well-funded researcher, Dr. Harkrider also directs the Human Auditory Physiology Laboratory and focuses on differences in brain wave patterns while typical and neurodiverse individuals listen to and produce speech.
Dr. Harkrider is a proud UT alumna, a recipient of the UT Alumni Association Distinguished Service Professor Award, a graduate of the UT Executive Leadership Institute, and serves as the treasurer of the Council of Academic Programs in Communication Sciences and Disorders.
I am grateful to Dr. Harkrider for taking on this important new role that will strategically increase her presence and engagement on both the Memphis and Knoxville campuses. Details on a national search for the next dean for the college will be forthcoming.
Please join me in thanking Dr. Alway for his excellent service and in wishing him well as he dedicates his great talent and passion to research and mentorship. Please also congratulate and support Dr. Harkrider in this interim leadership position.
Respectfully,
