The Daily Egyptian is published by the students of SIU at Carbondale. Except during vacations and exam weeks, The Daily Egyptian is published Monday through Friday during the fall and spring semesters and TWThF during the summer semester."

Grant will help disabled students in several ways

SIUC has no difficulty recruiting disabled students, with a nearly 50-percent increase over the past decade. To build on that impressive percentage the University has recently won a grant to aid disabled college students, regardless of what University they plan to attend.

A $95,000 grant, awarded this month from the Illinois Board of Higher Education will help them to do this.

The money will support programs such as the Transition/ Inclusion Camp and Adapted Technology and Transition. Both of these programs are designed to help disabled individuals with their transition into a University setting, as well as to assist them in expanding their technological skills.

According to statistics from Disability Support Services, the retention rate among those who take part in the Transition Project is 72.5 percent. This is almost 5 percent higher than the average retention rate for disabled students entering their second year at Universities nationwide.

"We wrote this [grant] because there are students with disabilities who came here that did not know how to use a computer," said Kathleen Plesko, director of DSS. "Ten years ago this would have been different, but now I would say that not knowing how to use a computer is the equivalent of not being able to use a pencil."

A few years ago, with assistance from organizations including Information Technology, Plesko and others involved with DSS worked to improve accessibility at the University.

Plesko said students with disabilities often lack the everyday computer skills that most incoming students possess. Occasionally, this is simply a lack of knowledge, but it is often due to a lack of accessibility. Approximately $60, 000 of the grant will go toward improving website design and adapting computers at the University.

"If a page is not designed accessibly, it can be virtually useless to a person using adaptive technologies," said Michael Whitney, an assistant program director for DSS. "Just as an architect curb cuts and ramps new buildings, web designers consider the same issues when developing our electronic world for the web."

The grants will aide in bringing technology that includes programs on the "high and low" end of technology. The lower end provides programs such as a screen reader, which reads aloud text to blind students. It will also help to provide a system that helps students unable to move any part of their body to shift the cursor of a computer using brainwaves.

Although these advancements in technology have a significant impact on the academic career of students with disabilities, DSS Coordinator Rita Van Pelt emphasizes that projects must focus on everyday accessibility and inclusion.

"Students with disabilities face a lot more challenges than other students," Van Pelt said. "They may have to deal with personal care issues where as before a parent or other personal managed for them."

The Transition/ Inclusion Camp project will be the primary benefactor of the Transition Project, which received $35,000 of the grant.

The camp, which took place for the first time at SIUC last summer is designed to help incoming disabled students with both the survival and inclusion issues they may face their first time at a University.

Although the transition program has existed for at least eight years, Van Pelt said, the camp is unique among Illinois universities.

The camp is open to disabled individuals who are juniors and seniors in high school as well as transfer students from junior colleges. According to Van Pelt, the camp is open to any person planning to attend an Illinois university.

The students spend a week at the free camp, which is paid for by the grant from the IBHE. The camp helps participants with everything from mastering basic skills they may have relied on their parents to perform to more entertaining activities such as bowling. Plesko emphasized the importance of these activities for individuals who may have felt excluded from activities such as physical education, during their secondary education.

The program, which this year assisted 18 disabled people, required a great deal of time, often required organizers to work more than 12 hours each day, Plesko said she still considered it a success and plans to change little in the upcoming year.

"I think I had more fun than I've ever had working that week," Plesko said. "I also think I got more work done than I've ever done at work."

 

 

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