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HEAD OF THE CLASS
Is college in your future? If so, these tips may help you choose just the right home away from home.
View ForumA cobblestone walkway may be quaint?and technically accessible?but if you?re a wheelchair user, it?s probably not much fun. When you look for an accessible college campus, you need to take such factors into consideration.
But facility ?disability friendliness? isn?t the only information you should consider. Determine what accommodations you need and to what extent the college can provide them.
?To me, exceptional accessibility is like a good baseball umpire,? says Adam Bleakney, 25, a University of Illinois (U of I) journalism graduate student. ?When an ump is doing his job properly, he goes unnoticed. When he screws up, on the other hand, he sticks out like a couple of parents at a college bar.?
??Don?t be fooled by the size of the school,? write Caroline Ross and Karen Lee in ?Charting Your Course: HalfthePlanet .com Rates 20 Top Schools? (www.halftheplanet.com/000824/departments/education/article5.html). ?Smaller schools like California Institute of Technology and the College of William and Mary may not have a full-time disability resource office, but that does not necessarily mean that smaller schools provide fewer services. At Princeton and Duke, for instance, any class scheduled in an inaccessible room is moved to a different location if a student with a disability wishes to enroll. A larger school may not be able to make such individualized accommodations. But larger schools, especially state universities, tend to make the largest quantity of services readily available.?
In ?Finding the Perfect (and Accessible) College? (www.Halftheplanet.com), Tiffiny Carlson states, ?When I started looking for a wheelchair friendly school, I thought I?d be going nowhere fast. Thankfully, I was wrong. More than ever, colleges in the United States are getting their accessibility acts together.?
Carlson urges prospective students to follow these steps for a bright future:
?? Check out the Disability Services Center. But, Carlson warns, colleges will sugarcoat their programs to get you to enroll. ?Plan ahead and think carefully about what you need, then meet with a school representative to make sure the school is willing to make reasonable accommodations. Above all, ask questions!? she urges.
?? Tool around the campus. Check out the bathrooms, the closets, and even the light switches. Think of your regular day and what you?ll need to get around.
?? Beware of older campuses. Just because a catalog says the school?s accessible doesn?t mean it?s completely barrier-free. See it with your own eyes.
?? Don?t forget your social life. At a more diverse school, people are more likely to see you ?the person? rather than you ?the disability.?
Students with disabilities often face expenses not incurred by other students. These may include:
?? Special equipment (related to the disability) and its maintenance
?? Cost of service for study, such as readers, interpreters, note takers, or personal-care attendants
?? Transportation, if traditional means are not accessible
?? Medical expenses not covered by insurance that relate directly to a disability
Be sure to inform the college?s aid administrator about any disability-related expense that may previously have been covered by your family budget. This may include food and veterinary bills for guide dogs or the cost of recruiting and training readers or personal-care attendants.
Leaving home often requires new or additional equipment to allow independence at college. For example, your secondary school may have furnished an adapted computer or other disability-related item, but this belongs to and remains at the school. Seek assistance from the Office of Disability Support Services and/or the Financial Aid Office to determine such expenses.
The HEATH Resource Center operates the national clearinghouse on postsecondary education for people with disabilities. [Contact: HEATH, (800) 544-3284 (voice/TTY) / (202) 939-9320 / 833-5696 (fax) / HEATH@ace.nche.edu.] Support from the U.S. Department of Education enables the center, a program of the American Council on Education (ACE), to serve as an information exchange.
Single copies of printed materials are available free of charge. You may also directly access and download publications from gopher://bobcat-ace.nche.edu or view them at www.heath-resource-center.org.
With so many people using computers, an increasing alternative to physically attending classes is e-learning. One such program is the University Alliance, a form of online education.
In this program, regionally accredited degrees earned by students are from real universities (Saint Leo and Regis) founded more than 100 years ago. The online degrees are the same as those earned by attending class on campus.
State-of-the-art technology developed by Bisk Education, Inc., allows the University Alliance to deliver streaming audio and video lectures online. No classroom attendance is required. You can get more information at www.universityalliance.com/pn.
St. Leo offers online bachelor of arts (B.A.) degrees in accounting and administration (with specialization in accounting, management, and management information systems) and bachelor of science (B.S.) in computer information systems.
Regis, established in 1877, is said to provide the largest external MBA program in the United States.
Probably the most valuable resource to new students is the network of people with disabilities already on campus. Individuals who have had similar experiences and needs are likely to have practical advice and low-cost solutions to problems incoming students frequently encounter.
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