Welcome to Episode 137 of the Think UDL podcast: Deconstructing “College Material” with Cate Weir. Cate Weir is the Program Director for Think College for the Institute for Community Inclusion at the University of Massachusetts at Boston. She has written and managed grants to create programs for students with intellectual disabilities to attend college and continues to work with, improve and grow these programs nationwide. In today’s conversation, we talk about the history of and need for college programs for students with intellectual disabilities, what the benefits are to the students enrolled in these programs as well as the benefits to professors who teach and the general enrollment students who take classes in which students with intellectual disabilities are co-enrolled. Throughout the conversation we deconstruct what “college material” has been and how it has changed over the years and we end with thoughts on how instructors, students and universities can design environments where all students, including those with intellectual disabilities, are included. Thank you for listening to this conversation on the Think UDL podcast.
Resources
Check out the Think College website
Cate Weir also suggests these resources:
Resources on Academic Access for Students with Intellectual Disabilities
CAST’s Postsecondary Education Website
Transcript
1:04:49
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
universal design, intellectual disabilities, college programs, student benefits, professor benefits, inclusive education, self-determination, career development, peer mentoring, competitive employment, higher education, inclusive design, student satisfaction, academic inclusion, post-secondary education
SPEAKERS
Lillian Nave, Cate Weir
Lillian Nave 00:02
Welcome to think UDL, the universal design for learning podcast where we hear from the people who are designing and implementing strategies with learner variability in mind. I’m your host, Lillian Nave, and I’m interested in not just what you’re teaching, learning, guiding and facilitating, but how you design and implement it, and why it even matters. Welcome to Episode 137 of the think UDL podcast, deconstructing”college material” with Cate Weir. Cate Weir is the program director forThink College, for the Institute for Community Inclusion at the University of Massachusetts, at Boston. She has written and managed many grants to create programs for students with intellectual disabilities to attend college, and continues to work with improve and grow these programs nationwide. In today’s conversation, we talk about the history of and need for college programs for students with intellectual disabilities, what the benefits are for the students who are enrolled in these programs, as well as the benefits for professors who teach and the general enrollment students who take classes in which students with intellectual disabilities are co enrolled. Throughout the conversation, we deconstruct what quote college material end quote has been and how it has changed over the years, and we end with thoughts on how instructors, students and universities can design environments where all students, including those with intellectual disabilities, are included. Thank you for listening to this conversation on the think UDL podcast. Welcome Cate Weir to the think UDL Podcast. I’m glad to have you.
Cate Weir 02:11
I’m glad to be here.
Lillian Nave 02:13
So great. I mean, interested to talk about what you coordinate, what you do. And first of all, I need to ask you, what makes you a different kind of learner.
Cate Weir 02:25
I love that question, and I when I was thinking about it, I think the thing that came to mind was for me to listen and attend. When I’m in a class or in a lecture or even in a meeting, I need to fidget. I need to play with a literal fidget. I have the fidget spinner here on my desk, or I doodle on paper. Or if people have been thoughtful enough to give fidgets on the on the table, as they sometimes do, I’ll make things out of pipe cleaners and all of that actually might look like me being distracted or bored or disinterested. It’s really my way to stay engaged. So I think there are a number of people to for whom that is true, but it’s definitely true for me.
Lillian Nave 03:17
Is that something that you’ve noticed, like recently, or it’s always been that way. Or did you kind of come into accepting that, or tell me about that?
Cate Weir 03:28
I think it’s always been the case that I needed, I wanted to fidget or doodle, right? But I think, you know, being an older person and going to school when the rules were pretty strict about what you were allowed to do in a classroom when your teacher was speaking. I think I had to, I wasn’t allowed to do it. And it could cause me, you know, I just literally sort of start to feel sort of really itchy, and it would be harder for me to focus because I was thinking about the need to fidget or the need to do that. And then over time, as an older student, you know, you learn that it looks like you’re taking notes, like you might be doodling. So I learned that trick, and that was helpful. And now I think people are familiar with the fact that many people, if they’re knitting or if they are doodling or they are coloring, they are, in fact, not not paying attention. They are actually trying to keep their attention in the room and and do the things. And I still get, you know, in people will think that I’m always multitasking, like in a negative way. But in fact, really, I do find that it’s it’s helpful, and I’ll just explain that to people, and they they understand it, but even today, I feel like it needs a little bit of explanation. Sometimes,
Lillian Nave 04:49
yes, absolutely, yeah, I, I was interested in that your answer, especially about how that’s played out, because I. Know, certainly even in the beginning of the time when I was the teacher and a college class and would look down at a student doodling and thought, you know, 25 years ago, I was like, Oh, they’re not paying attention. And I made so many assumptions, yeah. And so I’ve been on this journey too and realizing how important it is for me. You know, often I’m just writing, taking notes to myself, even, you know, that’s what keeps me engaged. And sometimes there’s the doodle, or sometimes there’s just me kind kind of getting my body out in, in trying to listen that. And that’s how I stay engaged. But I was, I was wrong about so many things, because I was like you in a system where that was not respectful, right? Exactly that was not appropriate, and how wrong that was for so many of our students. So thank you very much for explaining that. Um, and so I was interested when I heard about you. Actually, we kind of met through the UDL conference, and some of the folks at cast that introduced me to you, and you are at Think College, and I wanted to know more about it, and I think our listeners would be interested. So what is Think College? Why did you decide to start this work that you do there? Think
Cate Weir 06:23
College is actually a collection of a number of different grant funded projects, all related to post secondary education for students with intellectual disability specifically. So it’s I’ve worked for. Think College, which, like I said, we sort of made up that name to just be a quick way to describe us as a as an organization or as an entity, but we’re really part of the Institute for Community Inclusion at UMass Boston, which does a variety of projects, federally, state funded projects, all related to improving the lives of people with intellectual and developmental disability. So our team, as I said, focuses on post secondary education, which is a relatively new area of focus for the field, because kind of previously well, until the 1970s students with intellectual disability sometimes weren’t even allowed to go to public school K 12 schools. Or were, you know, shuttled off into a segregated environment, or just told, you know, they they just wouldn’t benefit from school. And so the changes that came to K 12 and special education, I think, generally led to an idea that, well, if we’re going to be saying that students need to be included in all these other areas of education, what about college? What about post secondary education? And so that has led to some some federal funding, some state funding, and certainly a tremendous amount of grassroots efforts on the part of advocates for people with intellectual disability, as well as people with intellectual disability themselves, just really saying, What about us and why are we left behind in in being able to continue our education after high school? So I found that really, really interesting. I think that what led me to it is one of the first areas, first places that I really started thinking about this was literally my first job out of college where I worked with individuals older Well, you know, people, they were adults of a variety of ages that had grown up primarily at an institution in Massachusetts, an institution for people with developmental disabilities. And they basically got robbed of kind of any kind of meaningful education entirely. And but they were grown up now, so if they wanted to be able to continue an education or learn anything, college was the environment that was kind of available to them, and yet it was not accessible to them, so they were kind of stuck. And so that felt frustrating to me. And even back then, which was in the late 1970s early 80s, you know, just trying to at least, can you take a class at the community college or do some things where you could learn, but it was very common and completely allowable for people to say, well, we don’t really serve students like that here. Those students don’t come here. So the options were very, very limited, and so I became very interested in that just generally, and then went on to work with adults with disabilities in the community for many years, and then became a faculty member at a community college as well as a disability services provider at a community college. So then I was working in higher ed, and that sort of rekindled my interest, as well as my ability to do something about it and to start to think about it. So working on. A very grassroots level, just trying to support kids with intellectual disability come to my college and talk to them about what kinds of supports they might need to take a class or pursue a certificate. And while I was doing that, you know, then there was which we’ll talk a little bit about, the history of the development. I guess I already did the history a little bit my own, my own personal lens of the history. But, you know, then some things really started to develop that allowed me to to really focus in this area. But I just believe in the power of higher education. I always have, it’s been, you know, I have three kids, and it was always just, you know, my kids are going to go to college. I have six brothers and sisters. We all went to college. My parents did not, but we all did, and it was just part of what it was that we believed in the in education. We believed in the power of higher ed to transform lives and open up opportunities. And so fundamentally, just felt grossly unfair that that opportunity was just shut off for individuals with a certain type of disability. Yeah,
Lillian Nave 11:08
right? Yeah. We say colleges for all, but do we mean it right? And I really appreciate this thinking, and I don’t think many people think about this at all. I also, side note, appreciate that it’s called Think College. It was like, after we talked a couple, like, a month ago, I realized that my podcast think UDL and think college. It’s like, we’re we’re meant to be together. Yes, exactly. You came up with a think college. And I was like, how, what am I going to title this UDL podcast? I guess it’s just going to be think UDL. So, yeah, I am interested in a little bit about like the programs now, how did they evolve to what they are, how they grown in the last 20 years? And, yeah, just a little bit more about these programs. Are they degree granting programs, or are they certificate or can you just kind of fill out that picture for
Cate Weir 12:04
Yeah, and I think this is a conversation we have a lot. I think people can sort of get the big picture that I just described, like, well, sure, of course, these students ought to have the opportunity, but part of the reason that they’ve been excluded historically is because they may have slightly different needs or support. They may have different preparation in high school than students, even with other students with disabilities. So there is some some thought that has to go into, yes, they need to have access to college, but how do we make that access meaningful, because, frankly, at the beginning of what we might describe as access to college was fairly superficial. You know, we want, like you could come on campus and and go to a football game or do social events, things like, say, a best buddies or a Special Olympics, something that was you were pretending to be, pretending to be a college student, yes, so that was really, I mean, even that was a step in the right direction, I guess, because just seeing them being able to be on campus, but some of the early efforts, which I think started in the maybe eight, late 80s and 90s. And I’ve always I don’t have any research to support me, but I bet somebody does. I believe that it’s was just kind of a natural next step from the Education for All Act and then, but became the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and all of its iterations, which just kept insisting that all students with disability, no matter how significant their disability might be or how it may impact them, had a right to an education in public education or K 12. So once that right was awarded to students, and they began taking advantage of that and going to regular elementary schools, regular high schools, participating in high school in a meaningful and inclusive way, then it was kind of like, well, all my friends that I’m graduating high school with, many of them go to college. Where am I going to college? Yeah. And so I think because we’ve changed the trajectory in K 12, it led naturally to thinking about that next step of post secondary education. So that led to a lot of grassroots efforts individual students, such as the ones that I worked with early in my career that just said, I want to come to college, and somebody would be like, well, I’m going to help you fix going to help you figure that out. So no real systems change, but just kind of one kid at a time with a with probably a pretty willing parent or parents or family or social group to sort of stand behind them and and help. Down with with it. So they kind of made those things happen. And then, like I said, some more, maybe primarily social opportunities on college campuses would be begin or training programs that were separate, but on a college campus. So that was kind of what the early days somewhat looked like. And then, in a real sea change, I think, really occurred in our field, in in 2008 when the Higher Education Opportunity Act was was signed, which was a reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, which is a behemoth piece of legislation that rules a lot of aspects of higher education, primarily, or started really trying to set up the guidelines around the access to federal student aid, but it really addresses a lot of things in higher education. 2008 was actually the last time that this Act was reauthorized. It’s overdue for reauthorization by quite a minute, quite a few years, but it has not so this, this is the last and standing act version of the act that that we’re under now. But in the for the first time, the higher Higher Education Opportunity Act mentioned students with intellectual disability. It was the first time that we’re even referred to in the act at all, and what it did is to describe a type of program that would offer the supports and the type of educational opportunities that if we that folks felt students with intellectual disability would really benefit from in college. So it described a non degree or they can be degree programs, but in practice, they are almost all non degree programs that offered a comprehensive program. In fact, the terminology they use in the act is the comp. They call them comprehensive transition post secondary programs, or CTP. So they described it as a very the word comprehensive and well used here because it includes academics, inclusive academics, taking college classes with students without disability, learning to be more independent in a in a proactive, thoughtful way, not just there’s so much independence that’s learned just naturally on a College campus. So it’s a tremendous place to do that. But there is also, they ask these programs to focus on that or attend to it, specifically, also the development of self determination skills and career development skills and having actual work experiences. So there’s like, so those four components make up a comprehensive transition post secondary program, and that definition is what we operate under today. And it was first that, you know, was first seen in that act in 2008 and that act also provided a significant amount of federal funding, which continues today. So it funded the National Coordinating Center that I work for, and have worked for since it was first funded in 2010 it funded model demonstration programs so universities and colleges were able to apply for federal funding to establish or improve a program for students with intellectual disability. So and since that time, since 2010, so for almost 15 years at the National Coordinating Center, we’ve been collecting data on practice, promising practices, on outcomes, and data that just describes these programs. And so that is the sea changed from kind of anything goes, like, if they’re on campus, we’ll call that a post secondary program, or we’ll call that an opportunity. This is saying, No, there’s a there’s a way to do it, and they have to be in classes and I the Act specifies students need to be included in regular academic settings with students without disability for at least 50% of the time. And, you know, I believe in full inclusion, so sometimes I’ll be like, Oh, 50% but I’m it’s helpful to be reminded again, if, since we’re talking history here, of history and the extraordinary amounts of exclusion and segregation that these individuals experience and continue to experience, even under all the regulations that there are in idea about inclusion, particularly in high school, students are still with intellectual disability, often have a fairly segregated experience in education. So because I’m told that it’s the only I’m going to say, don’t quote me on this. But this is why I’m on your own podcast to get quoted, right? But I’ve been told that it’s one of the few, if not the only, piece of the federal legislation that specify a particular percentage of inclusion that is required. Oh, so that’s that puts it in a different context. For me, we always say that’s the floor, not the ceiling, when we’re advising people about how to establish a. Program, but it was very helpful, obviously, to the field. Every field kind of needs definitions and terminology to sort of create itself. And so that’s really what, what this act did, took it from a grassroots effort that was really led by people who just believed in full inclusion for all people in all places, including college, and now it has this structure that was provided. So we’ve gone from we did a survey in 2009 that found a little over 100 colleges, universities, technical colleges, that would that’s reported that they were that they had some services for students with intellectual disability. So that’s some of those would have been, you know, programs where students are being included in academics and so forth. But many of them are. The definition wasn’t there was an operational yet. So that would plea, I’m in a segregated class on a campus, and I go there every day, and I I’m in college, but I’m not doing anything with the regular college students. So there’s a variety of models, net 100 today we have close to 350 initiatives that most of which come very much more close to that description that was provided in the higher ed act that students are taking college classes and doing working on internships and full fledged members of the campus community with all rights and responsibilities of any other undergraduate. So the number has grown, and the quality and definition of what’s available is also changed,
Lillian Nave 21:39
and these programs have a certificate, or there’s, there’s some sort of credential that comes at the end. Am I correct?
Cate Weir 21:46
Yes, most do offer a credential. And that’s an evolving area. It’s part of my work right now. I’m really interested in the credential component of these programs, because I think anybody who’s listening, who you know has been involved in kind of a great kind of a grassroots effort, and it seems like particularly, maybe an inclusion. It’s just been my experience working to try to include people in a variety of places, that you start by being kind of grateful to just be in the room, you know, just like, Oh, thanks for letting us. And I’ll admit to 15 years ago, 18 years ago, some of my advice to people might have been like, just try to stay under the radar, try to try not to, you know, let anybody know. Now we’re, I wouldn’t say that at all. You know, we’re in a different place, but so we’ve evolved from being offering a program that’s like, well, at least they’re in school and, you know, they’re taking a class, and that’s good to Yeah, but what’s college costs money, right? And this isn’t different for these programs. These programs charge tuition and fees just like any other college student has to pay. So what’s the point? Like? What do I get at the end? Other people get a thing that means something. So the focus over the last several years has been more and more on creating those meaningful credentials. So most programs do offer a certificate or credential of some sort, primarily right now it is a non degree certificate. They have many and these are the early versions of those certificates would be something general, a very common name you might see is a certificate in Career and Community studies, for instance. Sort of offers some framework, but it offers a lot of flexibility, because one of the other things that the higher ed act did when describing these programs is say that they needed to be based on person centered planning. So it was intended for these programs to be flexible enough to meet the student where they are and to allow them to study in a variety of areas. So it kind of is akin to an independent study or an independent individualized degree program, yeah, that you might have when I graduated as an undergrad, I had an individualized course of study I was allowed at that time for me to sort of pull from different disciplines and put together a program that I thought met my career goals, and that’s really what they’re doing. So they’re taking a series of courses, as well as having internship and work experiences that are about what they personally want to do. So that lends itself to having these sort of generic term names for the credential, but more and more so now people are are really focusing on offering the full range of post secondary opportunities. So how can students participate and earn a career and technical education industry recognized credential in early childhood education or nursing assistant or whatever their interest might be. And then some students start college here in the non degree program and continue into a degree program. And more and more programs are sort of offering a continuum for students. A way to enter and then a way to continue through a variety of different opportunities. But yeah, the starting point is still primarily a non degree program. I was just talking a colleague before this this morning, and we’re doing our our main conference, our big conference on inclusive post secondary education is in a couple of weeks, and one of the sessions that I’m participating in or presenting on is, how do we describe the value of this credential to employers and really, frankly, to students and families as well? Because we know what it means when you say it’s a shorthand. You say, I have an associate’s degree, I have a master’s degree where, like, Oh, I know what that means, but that’s because we constructed its meaning and we and we defined it, and we advertised it, right? We explained it, yeah. So I had to do the same thing for these non degree credentials, because they are not a non degree credential might have thought of as, oh, I took a six week class in Microsoft Word. You know, this is a full fledged, often four year full time undergraduate educational experience that includes courses and work experiences and being held accountable to learning to take care of yourself, learning to be more self determined. Yeah, internships, all of that. So it’s like, you don’t want people to take what they think they know about a non degree certificate and apply it to this experience, because it’s really quite robust. Yeah?
Lillian Nave 26:34
Okay, so many things I’d like to think about with you too, when you were going through, what that certificate, or what the 2008 Higher Education Act, Higher Education Opportunity Act said, and kind of mapped out what the program was with the credential and and kind of gave substance to that definition. It did make me think about, what is a college experience, or what? What is the purpose of college? What is college? What do students get out of college? And I’m talking in the wider world, and I’ve had many conversations with my colleagues about it, and I I found that the best answer is, what do you get out of college? You get a credential. So your degree, whatever that is you you go to college, and what do you get out of it? The experience right, going away for four years, or being at home and going to community college, or whatever it is, you get that experience of meeting other people who are on that journey together, and you’re hearing other ideas that’s really, really important. And the other thing you’re supposed to be gaining to our skills, skills that make you well, to be very economical, marketable, you know, later on, but also skills that make you a better person. You’re communicating, you’re able to think more clearly. You’re you’re gaining cognitive skills you’re gaining, you know, might you learn how to do Microsoft Excel, right? You know, other things, or accounting, that sort of thing. So those three things, that’s what college is for. It is a credential, the experience and the skills that you get and and this is, to me, this is the same thing, yep, this is why you go to college. So I
Cate Weir 28:22
love it so much. You just said it so well, because I’m writing it down. Because when I do my talk on the value of a credential, I’ll say that’s this is just one piece of what it is of why you go to college. Yeah, I think it’s an important piece. Because I think early on in our field, we focused a lot on the experience part. And we would talk about, oh, they’re having a great college experience. And now we sort of bristle when we hear this, like it’s not, no, it’s a college education. Yeah. So, yeah. So it goes to that, you know, our roots, and sort of like more social inclusion, but not really any academic inclusion. So we want to make sure, but it’s really well said, and those things are absolutely, what, what students intellectual disability get out of college too? Absolutely, yes,
Lillian Nave 29:06
yeah, it’s I, I think all three of those things are essential. And, and yes, you can go, you can get a degree online, but you’re still having an experience like an online so you don’t have to, like, go away to a four year school, like, go away from your parents on it. It is the experience itself. And you can have that many different so all three of those, I think, yes, absolutely. And once you get out and say, No, I didn’t gain any skills, well, then that’s, that’s not college. That’s a failed experience. I have a bachelor’s
Cate Weir 29:40
degree, but I still don’t know how to do anything
Lillian Nave 29:43
Exactly. Well, yeah, then we got to look at your the credentialing organization for that college, right, right. Okay, the other thing total aside here is you said you did your your major was an individualized major, so was my. Yeah, it’s very rare too. It was called a contract major when I was in college. There wasn’t one major that I thought was absolutely for me, and so it’s a lot of work. You have to go to your professors, you have to create a new major, and then you have to get people to sign off on it. And yeah, and I always thought, I mean, looking back on it, it’s like, well, that was weird. There was, like, you know, maybe five people in the entire graduating class that did a contract major of various different forms. And now I look back on it, and I think, oh, yeah, that totally fits with exactly who I am as a person. Yeah, it’s, yes, it’s always, I’m always in the middle of two, at least two different things, and never fully firmly planted in one discipline or thing or job or role. So So, because we are all individuals, right?
Cate Weir 30:53
Well, that’s so interesting. I don’t even know if they if they do it anymore I serve. There must be some institutions that still, yeah,
Lillian Nave 31:01
and I know at least where I am at Upstate, we have the in the Individualized Studies or the interdisciplinary Yeah, studies is major, and so I think it’s kind of moved into it being its own. Major is interdisciplinary,
Cate Weir 31:15
yeah? So I’m sure this is where that would fit. Yeah. Yeah, right.
Lillian Nave 31:19
Okay, interesting, right? So, okay, we’ve sort of set up this question, actually, that’s next already, but my question is about those people. I shouldn’t say those people. What happens if you get somebody that says, All right, well, this is all great, but some people just aren’t. And I’m going to use air quotes on a podcast here college material and and there should be gatekeeping. Yes, not everybody should go to college for whatever reason. Maybe it’s because of intellectual disability. What do you say about that?
Cate Weir 31:59
Yeah, well, first you know that that is that term is triggering for me that college material, because it’s been applied, one of the things I think is really interesting about that term is, is it’s been applied to different groups of people throughout history, and we just keep trying to find, who can we refer to in this Who can we include next, right? Yeah, and so I used to say a lot in talking about this work that I understood the challenge of thinking about it, because college is not just by necessity an exclusionary environment, it is by design and exclusionary environment. We mean for college to be exclusive. We pride ourselves on our low acceptance rates, right? That’s a that’s a badge of honor in higher education is to be exclusive, yes? So when your field of study is inclusive higher education, it’s almost like an in non sequitur, right? So it is challenging. And I think the there are certainly many, many people who would still believe that that’s truly important. But I think we really have to examine what it is we’re doing with higher education. It does go back to what’s the point of a higher education, and to me, at the end of the day to say that there’s a class of individuals, a type of individual who, by virtue of the label that they’ve been assigned, absolutely 100% cannot benefit from higher education. You’re not allowed to go to to to have these benefits that everybody else gets. That just seems wrong to me. So while I can appreciate that the you know that it does kind of fly in the face of what we think we know about higher education, which is that it is exclusive by design, it also is something that we work in higher ed, or just went to college, or for whatever reason, believe in as a really a powerful way to change and improve your life. So we shouldn’t be just shutting people off for that. That being said, I also think, and I said this a lot, especially early on, as we were sort of feeling our way. And how does this really work? And how is it meaningful? And what should it look like? Because it is a group of people that historically were 100% excluded. They were not in higher education at all. They were not even considered to be thought of. They don’t to this day, I think students in special education, particularly those with developmental disability may not even ever meet with a guidance counselor in high school like it’s just that. No, they’re special ed. They just do special ed transition. They don’t do guidance counseling things. So the the reason we wanted people to be able to go to. College and to participate higher ed. It’s because it’s college. So you want to open the doors for individuals and make a pathway to and through college for everyone that wants to go. But you don’t want to change the nature of higher education while you’re doing it. That’s always been something that I said what I would, you know, you, if you worked in transition and special education, and it can be frustrating, and it’s kind of like, well, we’ll just go to college, because in college, you’re in charge of your own life. You’re not in special ed anymore. You are an adult with a disability, but you’re not in special ed, and there is no special ed in college, and there, it’s an environment where there are high expectations and high stakes, and that was critical that we not adapt so much to include everybody, that we completely diminish the value of it in so doing, right?
Lillian Nave 35:59
Yeah, yes. So many things there. I really appreciate that you said that higher ed is designed that way, that exclusionary design, and it made me think about, what are those groups that were not? Quote, end, quote, college material. Well, for a long time, women, exactly right? You and I, we couldn’t do that. Nope, not allowed. You were excluded for a long time, anyone without funding to pay large amounts of money to go away, right? So or certain race or ethnicities not allowed, right? So why not just open up one more category, right? The people we’ve excluded? Yeah, yeah, yeah, when you think about it that way, it really does turn that I think traditional, as you mentioned, the traditional understanding of college material on its ear, that that’s a that’s just totally constructed what college material is, yeah. So anybody can be college material because it doesn’t exist. There we go, yes. Let me just say yeah. And the the idea that there should be opportunity right now, college may not be right for everybody, you know, and so it doesn’t mean everybody’s got to go. You got to go, everybody? Nope, no there. I’m sure there are many. There are that I know there are many students of college age who have no interest, and there are many students with intellectual disabilities that may have no interest, right? And they may, and many students may go into, like a career or technical, you know, field, or something like that, or kind of an alternative way of gaining skills and a credential and a different experience, and that’s great. But what about the opportunities for those that we can freely choose? I really appreciate didn’t know this, that part of it was about self determination. That’s a huge part, and that’s so much part of that experience of college, too. So,
Cate Weir 38:13
oh, it is. I mean, yeah, yeah, just every young person really starts to get a sense of their own agency. And I think that’s true, like you’ve been saying, no matter what your higher education experience is, going to community college, while you still live at home or or living away, far away from home on a on a four year residential campus, you still are in that place as a young adult, where you’re beginning to understand that you have an agency over your own life. And that’s a particularly difficult hurdle for individuals with intellectual disability, who are sometimes perceived as either subtly or unintentionally or quite vocally, as perpetual children who never grow up, who, have, you know, are like a 12 year old. No, they’re not. No, they’re not. They’re 27 years old. That’s what they are. They’re a 27 year old person who has an intellectual disability. They’re not a child always. And so, yeah, that’s a that’s just a way we’ve described people with intellectual disability for so long and and while I hear it less, I still hear it. And so that idea that you get to make your own choices with as simple as what you have for lunch or whether you make your bed or not, those those choices are sometimes so limited, and colleges, college campuses are just such a great place for people to start to see other young people making choices for themselves, and get the idea that I can make the choices for myself as well. Yeah,
Lillian Nave 39:47
wow. So, wow, we’ve already started the answering my next question, because that’s, what are the benefits? So we’ve, let’s say, All right, we have taken away that silly barrier. To students with intellectual disabilities attending college, because now we have some really amazing programs that provide credentials and experience and skills to our students. So what are the benefits to students who are in these particular programs? And then, I mean, if you want to, you can answer both of the next one is about, well, what about the other students who are not in the programs that are taking classes with these students as well? So But anyway, let’s start off with what happens to our students who go through these programs, who are graduates, who attain a certificate? What happens there? Why is this a good thing,
Cate Weir 40:36
right? Yeah. And I think, you know, we have touched on it already, because the overarching, perhaps somewhat glib response is they benefit in the same way that anybody else that goes to college benefits. And so if you, if you appreciate the the growth, the personal growth, the growth in Independence, the growth, growth in self determination, the career pathways that get established, the friendships that get made, the relationships that maybe not our friendships, but our professional relationships, which you know, let’s just be honest, those matter a great deal in terms of getting that first job, if not many jobs in your career, And that happens in college. So those benefits, certainly, particularly in those programs that that really focus on the students in these programs having, for all intents and purposes, a typical undergraduate experience that are that are inclusive in design, that offer a wide array of choice and opportunity and have high expectations for students and hold them accountable to those expectations, those kinds of programs will will result in the same benefits we see for any undergraduate that’s taken advantage of everything that’s available. One of the things that I think happens when students have been excluded or told they don’t have the choice to go to college, that that was something that wasn’t even available to them, something that their parents may not have even dreamed of. Yeah, I was just recently making a presentation a few weeks ago to faculty about, you know, including students with intellectual disability in their classes, and a faculty member who also happened to be a parent, a parent of a person with a developmental disability, was just came up to me in tears just to say, I literally never, I never even thought about this, and I’m in higher education and and it’s and she blamed, I think she was feeling badly about herself, but it’s the culture, it’s the environment, like it’s not suggested that this is Something that we should be dreaming for our children. So particularly in those environments, we have students who, I don’t know if gratitude is quite the right word, but they recognize that this is an opportunity that maybe someone older than them with an intellectual disability did not have, and they have it. So they are particularly well suited to benefit, because they are so glad to be there. You know, they’re so glad to be there. Faculty will report, and it sounds, it sounds a little bliss, but truly, the experience can be sometimes, like they’re just like the most excited person in my classroom. They’re so glad to be there. They’re delighted to ask questions and get involved, and they’re not, they’re not cool about it. They’re excited about Yeah, you know, right? So, so they they have all of those benefits, but through our data that we collect, and we don’t collect in depth data from every program in the country, but we do collect data from all of those federally funded model demonstration programs. And so have done since 2010 we currently are collecting data from about 40 of the programs that are have current funding, but over the cycles of the three different funding cycles that have been available, we’ve collected data on about 130 programs, and several 10s of 1000s of students that have experienced those programs and those data just, if I can just sort of roll it all up into one sentence, they have about show about 70% On average, of competitive, integrated employment after graduation, which you know, at ebbs and flows, COVID years were not quite as good and so forth, but really high levels of competitive, integrated employment, which is a term we use, particularly in the employment of people with disabilities, because sometimes they can have a job, but it is not. It is a sub minimum wage job, or it is a segregated setting. So these are it for, you know, we use competitive, integrated employment. Another term would be a real job. Yeah? Real pay. Thank you. Yeah. So they have those kinds of jobs. Um, when they’re graduating. And data nationally for individuals developmental disabilities living in the community, some of whom may have gone to college, but most of whom did not right, because only about 2% of individuals with intellectual disability currently go to college. The national employment rate for those individuals, it hovers right around 18% so while we would like to see 90% 100% but the rates are pretty good for employment. So that’s a huge you know, college is an investment in your future, and career and jobs is the reason why most of us go to college, or one of the main reasons. So it’s good to know that it has those kind of employment results, but it also in our data that we collect from graduates. There also we ask about satisfaction in their life, the quality of their life, their friendships. Are they happy? And that’s very high as well, and I think that goes directly to the connections that they make in college and their ability to I don’t know about you, when I was a freshman in college, I had no idea how to be connected to anybody if they weren’t my roommate, you know, but I had to learn how to do that. How do you get out? How do you find people that like the same things that you like. That’s one of the things you learn. So not only are they making the friends that they you know probably will carry life long, like many of us do from college, they also have those skills in their new community of this is what you do. This is how you make friends. So those kinds of, those kinds of outcomes are seen as well, and an ability to see themselves as in charge of their own life, yeah, I think is really something else that we see. Their ability to just speak up for themselves and feel proud and feel confident. Those are all benefits that I think all many, many people who go to college see and get and earn, and in part, because those things are more difficult sometimes for a person with a more significant disability, it’s really marked when you see the difference that it can make. Yeah,
Lillian Nave 47:19
absolutely. And I wish we had, I wish we did a lot of surveys of of the general student population afterwards. And not just, excuse me,
Cate Weir 47:32
what’s your job?
Lillian Nave 47:33
But are you happy, right?
Cate Weir 47:35
Yeah. I mean, it’s interesting, because we, we do, do, we do try very hard to collect data on all of the students who have graduated from one of these federally funded programs. You know, longitudinal data is always difficult, response rates and things like that, but we, you know, we keep at it and we keep reporting on it, but it’s kind of a relatively new phenomenon at higher education that generally, that you track your graduates and try to figure out, did they get a job, and are they happy? You know, we kind of don’t do that. You know, in the field, like there’s more, more and more universities and colleges are doing that at the at the college level, at the program level, I meet so many individual program. So we’ll say, Oh, we, 100% of our students are working competitively, working in a real job in the community. Yeah, you know, 80 to 90% of our students are living in their own apartment, which they thought they would never do. They always thought they live with mom and dad. So we, we look at independent living, we look at sad job, satis, satisfaction and employment, and see some pretty good returns on all of those metrics.
Lillian Nave 48:42
That’s so great. And I would imagine, too, that the let’s think about those other students who are in the general population of the college and they’re taking classes right next, yes, sit next to the students that are in the in some sort of, think, college program, and there are, I would think, lots of benefits too, to meeting somebody that you might not have considering the segregated nature of K 12, right? You might not have sat next to in a class until now. Yes, exactly,
Cate Weir 49:15
right. I think it’s really powerful and individual stories. As well as data show that the impact on other students is very positive as well, and it really, I mean the young people today, we can complain about certain things, but gosh, they have a sense of social justice. I feel generally, they know what’s fair, and they, while they unfortunately may not, have taken a lot of classes with individuals with intellectual disability in high school, they knew them. You know, they were maybe socially included, or they were there and they and they were asking, Where are they like? Why aren’t they here? Why are they not in college? So they appreciate seeing the. Diversity Equity inclusion, which is espoused in many, you know, many places, they appreciate seeing it in action in this way, and appreciate seeing intellectual diversity as just one other aspect of diversity. So it just sort of speaks to individuals. Sense of this is the world that we live in. It involves all kinds of different people, those students who get involved, because there’s a lot of these programs utilize what most people call a peer mentoring support program, so peers, meaning other undergraduate students, can get involved to help, you know, support people, socially, academically, in different ways, whatever they’re interested in. Students who get involved at that level just really, really report a profound impact on themselves as far as their their sense of people. They’re learning tremendous amount of skills about how to communicate with a lot of different people how to be a respectful peer support, and not a boss or somebody who’s in charge of somebody which is a tremendous skill to have in the work in any kind of workplace. And I think they recognize that all the way to Gee, I was an engineering major, and now I’m a rehab technology major, or I’m going to speech therapy or, you know, they they literally find a career path that they didn’t even know that they that was going to resonate for them. So it’s very valuable in those ways. And I think when I love it, when the peer mentor programs involve a variety of students from all across campus. I think sometimes we might think, oh, that’s the special education majors, or that’s the OT majors or whatever, but I think many programs really go out of their way to include students from all disciplines and just whoever’s interested. I met some great pre med students at a campus I was on recently who talked about that, how valuable it was for them, and just like eloquent ways around how, you know, I’m going to have patients who may have an intellectual or developmental disability, and I’m learning so much about that and and yet, that undercurrent of Equity and Inclusion, that philosophy is really important, that idea you’re not their boss or their parent or any you’re not telling them what to do, you’re supporting them, that’s really important to have both of those things, because these students are not their case or their experiment. So while they learn and they can and we can identify the value that both people get out of the partnership. We just want to make sure that it’s equitable, and it goes both ways, and not that I’m gonna, you’re gonna be my, you know, my class project, right?
Lillian Nave 52:54
Right? Exactly. Yeah, just like in any college experience. You I met people I never would have met before, learned about different cultures, religions, thoughts, ways of doing and being and yeah, I am much better for it. Yeah,
Cate Weir 53:14
that’s exactly right. Yeah, that’s well put, yeah, yeah.
Lillian Nave 53:18
So, um, so how can let’s think of the instructors, other students and universities in general. How can we design? What are your thoughts about designing an environment where all those students, including those with intellectual disabilities, are included. What can we do better? Yeah,
Cate Weir 53:42
well, you know, to the point of this podcast, I mean, there’s just, there’s just nothing like universal design, at least thinking, you know, to to think about designing an environment for the widest array of students, from the beginning and and I like the way that cast talks about students at the margins and recognizing that when you design for for the widest array, you’re going to capture those individuals in ways that, when we don’t think in those ways, they’re, you know, they’re sort of a that’s Where the college material trope began, right is you belong in the middle of the bell curve. You that’s where you live. You happen to learn well in this kind of lecture based one way of doing things that are paper and pencil. If you do well there, then you’re then you’re good. But we start to spread that out, and then people fall away and are disabled by the environment, much more so than by anything that’s intrinsic to themselves, right? So certainly, universal design can make a huge difference as far as making our environments more accessible for everyone, including those with intellectual disability. But. You’ve made a good point in our conversations previously, that it’s not it’s a it’s maybe necessary, but not sufficient, right? There, there are going to be needs for accommodations, and there may even be needs for individuals to fully, even meaningfully participate in a college class who have an intellectual disability for modifying some of the stuff that’s going on, and that means you’re not going to earn credit. You know, you can audit the class or sit in or in some other way, participate in a non credit way, because we don’t advocate and no one practices. We’re going to modify this college class expectations, but you’re still going to earn the credit, because that doesn’t happen in higher education, and we don’t really need it to or want it to, right? That’s important distinction. Yeah, right. So we still, but we want that rigorous course of study. It’s the high expectations are so critical to individuals who can truly be disabled by people just expecting that they’re never going to amount to anything. They’re never going to learn anything. I often say one of the other reasons I think post secondary education so important for these particular students is, let’s just look at the label that they have been assigned. It’s a developmental disability, meaning they’re going to develop they have delays in their developmental rates. So why are they the only ones that stop going to school at 18? They should be, yeah, you know, they need to 2426 right? Sometimes to get to places. So that’s really, you know, that’s really part of it too, is that keeping that environment rigorous but supportive, so having a willingness to simply open your classroom or open your doors to students with intellectual disability, and allowing for a program to establish itself and to set itself up that we’re going to provide supports to these Students. We know these students. We understand them. We’re here to support their extraordinary support needs, but we need you as a campus to provide the ordinary supports, because that can even be a struggle sometimes, in terms of, there’s a tutoring center and there’s there’s the librarians that are always so amazingly supportive to everybody, and there’s computer labs where you can practice skill, basic skills, and all of that needs to be accessible and available to students with intellectual disability. That seems obvious, but that’s that’s part of making your campus accessible is ensuring that even though they may be a non degree student, they may be a student who entered your college through an alternative admissions process, that once they’re there, that they have the availability of everything that the campus can provide that supports all students and is designed to do that, and then the program establishing Those additional supports, like we need more significant peer mentor support, more intentional instruction on certain aspects of skills that people need to be successful. You know, that’s a big part of working with people with intellectual disabilities is sort of an intentionality, whereas other students may be a little bit, maybe a little easier for them to learn by observation, or learn by just sort of absorbing the students may these students may need a little more intentionality. So that’s an important piece. So it’s willingness, it’s universally trying to create an environment where a wide variety of learners can be successful, creating additional supports when necessary, and fully utilizing and making accessible all the existing supports that are already there on campus. Yeah,
Lillian Nave 58:50
I love that distinction is that these a think college program, and they go by different names I know have the extraordinary supports that are needed for this particular population, and then the have, we have the ordinary supports, right, that that exists at a college campus that we’ve grown, you know, in the last probably 40 years. Yeah,
Cate Weir 59:18
so supportive. There’s so many resources, yeah, absolutely,
Lillian Nave 59:21
yeah. Because, I think in the last 40 years, especially, we’ve had far more people go to college from far many other groups and places and backgrounds than used to go to college. Because we, you know, started deconstructing what college material was.
Cate Weir 59:39
Exactly, yes, exactly right, yeah,
Lillian Nave 59:43
wow. This is fantastic, Cate. I have really enjoyed learning a lot more about what’s happened in in the last, you know, 20 years especially, and I must say that I found out a. Out these kinds of programs. We have one at App State and but also more generally and in the popular world, through a show that I watch called Love on the spectrum, and one of those the cast members is someone who participates in and finished the Clemson life, very cool, yes. Oh, I follow him on Instagram. Tanner, with the Chism says is his Instagram. And I have been so enriched too, by like, all of the things that I’ve seen that Clemson life accomplishes so and he works at a hotel. He has one of those real jobs, you know, so just being able to follow several of the folks that are participating in that, and we
Cate Weir 1:00:45
do so much of our you know, we have the data, but those stories, those meeting, those young people, talking to them, really exploring what it meant. We just had a webinar a couple days ago with a person who went to one of these programs, ended up inter interning with Think College, and then now works at the Institute for Community Inclusion. And she just really articulately and and really profoundly described like, who you’re seeing right here. Was doing this webinar. This is not who I was. This is not, I couldn’t talk like this about myself. I couldn’t speak up for myself. So you know being able to have someone explain it, or sometimes you just see it because you knew them when they were 18, and now you know that when they’re 25 and and what that experience has been. But yeah, it’s, it’s fantastic. It’s, it’s really a wonderful field for us to work in. It does intersect with a lot of other things that that I think are so important, like universal design, like, you know, equity, discussions, diversity. It really, it really resonates. And I think it’s so it’s really nice to know that college and higher education, while remaining true to its foundational and fundamental purposes that we described earlier, yes, can evolve to be inclusive of more people. Yeah,
Lillian Nave 1:02:16
absolutely. Well said. I so appreciate it. Well. Thank you. Thank you for spending your time this morning to talk to me and for our listeners to hear more about these, the programs that exist nationally. So in the United States, I’m interested to know if it happens outside of the United States. So if any of my listeners have info on that, let me know. But thank you so much, Cate, for all you’re doing and for kind of giving that substance and helping me to to understand this. So thank you.
Cate Weir 1:02:48
Thank you. I so appreciate the opportunity to talk to you and and hopefully to your listeners as well. Yeah, thanks.
Lillian Nave 1:02:59
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