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JOHNSON CITY — The East Tennessee State University College of Clinical and Rehabilitative Health Sciences recognized its 2021 Distinguished Alumna and Hall of Fame inductees on Thursday, May 19.
Dr. Tiffany A. Love is the college’s Distinguished Alumna. Love is an internationally known prison reform and social justice activist and inspirational speaker. She began outreach ministry as an adolescent and has become the founder of numerous ministries. One of these ministries is Beauty Behind Bars, which helps women and girls break away from the “mental incarceration and self-imprisonment” resulting from life choices and decisions. Love has been invited to speak to inmates at Pollsmoor Prison in South Africa — part of the prison system in which the late Nelson Mandela served a life sentence. Other ministries she has founded include Once in a Wifetime, Tenacious Teens 4 Christ, MAN Up Against Bullying and the National Youth Activist Awards.
Love earned her bachelor’s degree in education and Master of Social Work degree from ETSU, as well as a Doctor of Divinity from Embassy College and Chaplaincy and an honorary doctorate from Heart Bible Institute University. In 2012, she became the first African American to hold the title of Mrs. Tennessee. Also a published author, Love has been featured on several major media outlets, including ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, CNN, CBN, TBN, NowThis News and “The 700 Club.”
The five individuals inducted into the College’s Hall of Fame include:
* Danielle Garland — A graduate of the ETSU Department of Audiology and Speech-Language Pathology, Garland is a pediatric speech-language pathologist working at Niswonger Children’s Hospital in acute care with medically fragile infants and children. Garland also serves as vice president of the Tennessee Association for Audiologists and Speech-Language Pathologists. In addition, she is a cross-section editor and marketing and design lead for The Informed SLP, a national and international company that employs a team of speech-language pathologists and scholars who review the field’s newest research and write summaries every month to help clinicians stay informed to achieve better outcomes with their clients.
* Karen A. Gibbs — Gibbs graduated from ETSU with a degree in health education and administration before the university established its physical therapy program. She became a physical therapist and is known for establishing wound care as an area of practice in the field of physical therapy. Today she is a professor of physical therapy at Texas State University and president of the national specialty group in electrotherapy and wound care physical therapy. She remains an ETSU Buccaneer fan and is a supporter of and former adjunct faculty member in the ETSU Department of Physical Therapy.
* Judith Johnson — Johnson is recognized as an ardent, longtime supporter of early intervention and of the ETSU Speech and Language Clinic. She is a dedicated community worker and organizer for services for children with developmental delays, especially those in low-income communities. Now retired from the Tennessee Early Intervention System, which provides services to children from birth to age 3 who have disabilities or other developmental delays, she is a community servant who has volunteered at Johnson City’s One Acre Café for many years.
* Kimberly Ann Osucha — The late Kimberly Osucha was a 2014 graduate of ETSU’s Doctor of Audiology Program. Her own single-sided deafness was her motivation for going into audiology. As a student, she was recognized for outstanding academic achievement, attaining a 3.93 GPA in a rigorous and demanding clinical doctoral program. She presented her capstone project at the 2014 annual meeting of the American Academy of Audiology and completed her internship at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center (VAMC) in Washington, D.C. In her short career, Osucha worked at VAMCs in Watertown, New York, and Salisbury, North Carolina, before she passed away in May 2020.
* Lisa Vaughn Tipton — Tipton, who holds a degree in social work from ETSU, has 25 years of social work and leadership experience, working with various community partners to better the lives of women, children and families throughout East Tennessee. She is executive director of Families Free, a nonprofit, faith-oriented and community-based organization that works to build better communities in Northeast Tennessee. This organization provides treatment, education and intervention services to women and families affected by substance abuse, incarceration and domestic instability. She also serves as the clinical supervisor of the drug and alcohol clinical component at Families Free. In addition, Tipton has worked with East Tennessee’s local Recovery Courts, Department of Children’s Services, and criminal justice system for incarcerated women, serving between 75-100 women at four local jails each month.