Weinstein-Jecklin Speech Center
The Weinstein-Jecklin Speech Center is located on the fourth floor of Weinstein Hall at the University of Richmond main campus in Richmond, Virginia. Undergraduate and graduate students visit the Speech Center to work with trained student speech consultants to develop and refine their skills in preparing individual and group presentations. The Speech Center offers specific types of services related to course requirements and extracurricular opportunities, both for students and faculty. The Speech Center at the University of Richmond is notable for its innovative techniques and methods.
-
Weinstein Hall
Purpose
The purpose of The Weinstein-Jecklin Speech Center is to offer assistance to those who wish to pursue effective speaking and articulate behavior across academic disciplines.
History
The Weinstein-Jecklin Speech Center was formed in October of 1996, originally situated in the Webb Tower of Booker Hall, the performance arts building.
The first and current director of the Speech Center is Linda B. Hobgood, who proposed the speech center as part of an across the curriculum proposal for achieving oral proficiency along with Larry Witkos, an undergraduate speech communication major at the University of Richmond. Hobgood assembled a staff of thirteen consultants in December 1996.
Hobgood created an academic course, Theory and Pedagogy (RHCS 333), to be taught every spring and began in the year 1997 to prepare prospective consultants. The first year of its existence, the Speech Center held 537 student appointments and 33 faculty appointments. In its second year of operation, the Speech Center specifically offered services to athletes to practice press interviews and media relations. The speech center then developed its fellowing program (see services). By the end of its first five years of operation, the speech center had conducted 3,960 appointments. Schools such as Michigan STate University and Daystar University in Nairobi, Kenya, modeled their speech centers after the University of Richmond's.
Precursors include Brown University, the College of William and Mary and Radford University.
The speech center was featured in an article in Communication Educationin October of 2000.
Services
The Speech Center is a great place to organize thoughts, review speaking skills, practice delivery, and develop speaking style. Both students and faculty have access to the services at the Speech Center, and appointments may be conducted individually or for groups. Student consultants are available by appointment to assist clients with contemplation and practice. To make an appointment, clients may visit http://speech.richmond.edu. All practice sessions are recorded so that the client may review the performance and measure his or her own growth.
The Weinstein-Jecklin Speech Center also works with the University of Richmond Career Development Center (CDC) to help prepare for interviews by learning what questions to expect, how to focus and how to say exactly what you mean. CDC staff members conduct mock interviews at the Speech Center.
The Speech Center also operates a Fellows Program which pairs a Speech Center consultant with a specific professor for a semester to work with the class on communication assignments.