This is my voice! I fell in love with speaking and reading before an audience in my first speech communication course. I was an early admissions student and attended a local community college in Rockland County NY. I fell in love with this course! After this semester I enrolled and enjoyed my first Voice and Diction course. I was home! My undergraduate and graduate studies were from Montclair State University. I was forging forward and beyond! 

Looking back, this major picked me even before I was seventeen. I was born into a family from two different continents, and an extended family speaking seven different languages, and most served proudly in our military. I am a first-generation graduate. Let me invite you to our Thanksgiving table, I was the youngest, listening to World War I, tragedy, as the eldest Uncle stripped of his title three months into his service to walk the death march. The World War II uncles laughed as they shared their stories. The Vietnam cousins never spoke a word. I learned the language of experience. The family I made added more diversity and culture and employment for our aerospace. 

This textbook invites you to be easily understood by using your voice and diction to its best advantage for all effective communication, for all fields, for all to understand our language our brand our connection: ours. 

Turn the page and forge forward and beyond and bring us along!