THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2014
University helps develop program for students with special needs
PAGE 7A
PAIGE STINGLEY
@PaigeStingley
One of four universities selected to partner with TransCen Inc., a nonprofit that works to provide employment for youth with disabilities, the University will help develop a program that will ease the transition from high school to employment for students with special needs.
The University will receive $1 million of a $12.5 million grant from the United States Department of Education's Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services. The other schools include University of North Carolina at Charlotte, University of Oregon, and Western Michigan University, according to the abstract of the grant.
"The end goal is to improve outcomes for youth with
disabilities, whether it be attending college or finding employment," said Dana Lattin, assistant director of the Transition Coalition.
The grant will be distributed over a five-year period and will be used solely for the development of the online blended program. The University was selected for this project due to its heavy involvement in the research and development of youth with disabilities.
Since the program is designed for students leaving secondary education, it will have little effect on students who are currently enrolled. Researchers are looking at students who have been through the process of transitioning from high school to college to see what can be done to make it easier, but the University does not have an active role in that
research.
The Transition Coalition at the University has collaborated with youth with disabilities for the past 20 years. Their focus is to try to prepare these youth for living in the real-world.
"Stats show that students with disabilities tend to have a lower participation rate in postsecondary education," Lattin said. "They have a higher unemployment rate than students without disabilities, and often times those who are employed will be paid less than their colleagues without disabilities."
is aimed at educators in the 15 states that have requested additional intensive training as well as for the five states who have requested additional technical training.
Each university has been assigned a different responsibility in developing this program. The University's role in developing this program is to provide online and blended professional development for educators participation in the overall program. The program
The initiative, once developed, will be provided to all U.S. states and territories. The goal of the online portion is to help train educators to better prepare students for postsecondary employment and reduce high school and college dropout rates among students with disabilities, Lattin said.
The initiative stemmed from the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) which was created in 2004 to provide educational and related services to children with disabilities. The Transition Coalition is just one part of the act.
- Edited by Logan Schlossberg
University of Texas Missing brains were destroyed
HOUSTON — Dozens of human brains seemed to be missing from a research lab at the University of Texas in Austin. One professor guessed students either pulled a Halloween prank or went looking for an odd home decoration in the form of formal-dehye-packed jars.
Turns out, the story wasn't so mysterious.
The university said Wednesday that environmental workers disposed of between 40 and 60 jars, some of which contained multiple brains, about 12 years ago after faculty members said they weren't in good enough condition for research or teaching.
The questions were promoted by a recently released book about a brain collection that the university received 28 years ago from the Austin State Hospital. The thought-to-be missing specimens were part of the original collection of 200 brains and had been stored at the campus' Animal Resources Center.
On Tuesday, psychology professor Tim Schallert, a co-cu
rator of the collection, told the Austin American-Statesman it wasn't clear what had happened to about half of the collection. Fellow professor and co-curator Lawrence Cormack said it was "possible word got around among undergraduates and people started swiping them for living rooms or Halloween pranks."
The university then investigated. On Wednesday, the school said it couldn't provide a specific number of how many brains were destroyed. It also said a committee would be appointed to investigate the decision to destroy some of the brains and how all the specimens have been handled since the school received the collection.
"As researchers and teachers, we understand the potential scientific value of all of our holdings and take our roles as stewards of them very seriously," the university said in a statement.
The school's preliminary investigation also found no evidence to support claims that the brain of Charles Whitman, who fatally shot 16 people from the university's clock tower in 1966, was ever part of the collection.
Associated Press
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