Springfield College Dean Founding Member of the Global Rehabilitation Alliance

Springfield College Dean of the School of Health Sciences and Rehabilitation Studies Brooke Hallowell, PhD, was one of 14 signatories for international associations that founded the initiative of the Global Rehabilitation Alliance (GRA), which gathered for the first time on May 22 at the World Health Assembly hosted by the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva. Hallowell will continue to serve as a founding representative to the Global Rehabilitation Alliance for the next three years. The Global Rehabilitation Alliance mission is to advocate for the availability of quality, coordinated, and affordable rehabilitation through system strengthening according to population needs.

The Global Rehabilitation Alliance will be a platform for united advocacy and awareness-raising to strengthen rehabilitation in health and social systems around the world. Many organizations serve this goal through working to improve accessibility to services, quality of care, the building of rehabilitation workforce capacity, and strengthening of data collection. The Global Rehabilitation Alliance will aim to further these efforts through raising the profile of rehabilitation and strengthening networks and partnerships.

Hallowell has a global reputation in collaborative development of rehabilitation services and frameworks, especially in under-resourced regions. Most recently, she held adjunct faculty appointments and visiting professorships at universities in Korea, Malaysia, and Honduras. Hallowell is involved in current research, educational, and clinical program collaboration in Malaysia, Cambodia, China, India, Japan, Vietnam, Russia, and Honduras.

“It was a tremendous honor to serve as a facilitator of action as a founding member of the Global Rehabilitation Alliance,” said Hallowell. “I hope that my experience and reputation for global work in interprofessional service, community-based rehabilitation, and transnational research collaboration will be strengths to this wonderful and timely new initiative.”

For the previous 20 years, Hallowell has been engaged in helping develop new academic and clinical programs, and has served as the chair of the International Issues Board for the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association; chair of the first-ever Global Summit on Higher Education in Communication Sciences and Disorders; and chair of the Global Engagement Committee for the Council of Academic Programs in Communications Sciences and Disorders. Hallowell also is the international coordinator for the Aging, Disability, and Access to Care Project, which includes academic and clinical experts from several countries.

As dean, Hallowell collaborates with leadership of other divisions and units of Springfield College to participate in strategic planning and implementation activities that further the overall mission of the institution. She oversees academic areas within her School, including physical and occupational therapy, physician assistant, health science, emergency medical services management, communication disorders, and rehabilitation counseling and disability studies.

Most recently, Hallowell served as the founding executive director of the Collaborative on Aging, and the coordinator of graduate and undergraduate gerontology certificate programs at Ohio University. She also held several other positions at Ohio University, including associate dean for research and sponsored programs in the College of Health and Human Services; director of the School of Hearing, Speech and Language Sciences; and the coordinator of PhD programs for the School of Rehabilitation and Communication Sciences. She also served as director of the School of Languages and Linguistics at the University of Northern California.