Join College Steps at Future Quest hosted by George Mason University on Satruday November 14th, 2015. For more information, please see http://futurequest.gmu.edu.
Federal Government Launch Financial Effort Aimed At People With Disabilities
Highly relevent article about important legistation. http://www.disabilityscoop.com/2015/06/04/feds-financial-effort/20356/
New Federal Rule Aims To Boost Disability Employment
Very relevant new initaitive to boost employment options among youth living with disabilites. Call us for more information. http://www.disabilityscoop.com/2013/08/28/new-rule-employment/18604/
Congratulations to one of our Peer Mentors from Southern Vermont College! Karina Meza Named to CoSIDA Academic All-District NCAA DIII Women’s Soccer District 1 Team
Southern Vermont’s Karina Meza Named to CoSIDA Academic All-District NCAA DIII Women’s Soccer District 1 Team
BENNINGTON, Vt. — On Thursday, the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) announced their 2015 Academic All-District™ Men’s and Women’s Soccer Teams to recognize top student-athletes around the country for their excellence athletically and academically with Southern Vermont College senior defender Karina Meza (Los Angeles, Calif.) being included on the NCAA Division III District 1 Women’s First Team.
Meza’s honor is the first ever of its kind for any Southern Vermont student-athlete. The NCAA DIII District 1 Team is comprised of institutions in Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont. To be nominated, a student-athlete must be a starter or important reserve with at least a 3.30 cumulative grade point average (on a 4.0 scale) at his or her current institution. Nominated athletes must have participated in at least 50 percent of the team’s games at the position listed on the nomination form (where applicable). No student-athlete is eligible until he or she has completed one full calendar year at his or her current institution and has reached sophomore athletic eligibility. In the cases of transfers, graduate students and two-year college graduates, the student-athlete must have completed one full calendar year at the nominating institution to be eligible.
Meza has helped anchor a Southern Vermont defense that has allowed just 1.33 goals per game to date with a combined seven team shutouts. From the defense, she has scored three goals and registered one assist; all three of her scores have been game-winning goals with two being in 1-0 wins. The psychology major, who finished the 2014-15 academic year with a cumulative grade point average of 3.93, was named to the 2014 New England Collegiate Conference (NECC) All-Academic Team and is in line to also be on this year’s squad. She has started in all 16 of the Mountaineers’ games this season, helping them to tally the team’s best-ever record in the NECC and its fifth straight playoff appearance. She was recently named the NECC Player of the Week for the first time in her career back on October 12.
“The first thing that comes to my mind is that, ‘It’s always great to get an academic award, whether it’s for a team or an individual,’” commented fifth year SVC head coach Michael Zauzig. “They’re student-athletes, and ‘student’ does come first. They’re here to get a degree and prepare themselves for the next step in their lives. Karina, someone who’s either looking at going to the Peace Corp or grad school, has been committed to academics since the first day that she got here. I think it speaks volumes about Karina as a student to be the first person at SVC to get this honor. It additionally sets a precedent and a challenge to her teammates to see who can match it; it continues an expectation of academic excellence.”
Current members of CoSIDA are able to nominate players from their institution in the sponsored sports, and those same members are then eligible to vote on the district level. Only members of the Academic All-America® Committee and the CoSIDA Board of Directors and staff are able to vote at the national level to determine the CoSIDA Academic All-America® teams.
The Academic All-District™ teams are divided into eight geographic districts across the United States and Canada. This is the fifth year of the expanded Academic All-America® program as CoSIDA moved from recognizing a University Division (Division I) and a College Division (all non-Division I) and has doubled the number of scholar-athletes honored. The expanded teams include NCAA Division I, NCAA Division II and NCAA Division III participants, while the College Division Academic All-America® Team combines NAIA, Canadian and two-year schools. First-team Academic All-District™ honorees advance to the CoSIDA Academic All-America® Team ballot, where first-, second- and third-team All-America honorees will be selected later this month.
OPEN HOUSE SEASON AT COLLEGE STEPS!
PLEASE SEE BELOW FOR INFORMATION ON OUR UPCOMING OPEN HOUSES. JOIN US TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE SERVICES WE PROVIDE AT A CAMPUS NEAR YOU!
Lyndon State College
Program Director: Henekis Stoddard
Contact: Henekis@collegesteps.org
Open house: February 10th/ 4pm-6pm/ Lyndon State College: Rita Bole Room
Southern Vermont College
Program Director: Darcy Oaks
Contact: Darcy@collegesteps.org
Open house: February 10th/ 4pm-5:30pm/ Southern Vermont College: Everett Mansion's Burgdorff Gallery
Northern Virginia Community College - Loudoun
Contact: Aaron@collegesteps.org
Open house: February 19th/ 6pm-7:30pm/ NOVA - Loudoun Waddell Theater.
Castleton State College
Program Director: Patty Moore
Contact: Patty@collegesteps.org
Open House: February 24th/ 4pm-6pm/ Castleton State College: Hoff Hall
Johnson State College
Program Director: Chris Kennedy
Contact: Chris@collegesteps.org
Open House: March 5th/4-6pm/Johnson State College: Stearns Stage Space, Stearns Hall
HIGHLY RELEVANT ARTICLE ON UNMET COLLEGE NEEDS OF STUDENTS LIVING WITH ASD
Please enjoy reading the article here by Stephanie Pinder-Amaker, PhD, Director of the McClean College Mental Health Program.
INNOVATIVE FINANCIAL AID FOR STUDENTS LIVING WITH DISABILITIES
Thanks to OnlineSchools.org and to BestColleges.com, we are happy to promote a new online resource for financial aid options for students with disabilities across the country. Review the resources here and here.
College Steps Inc. has no partnership or agreement of any kind with BestColleges.com, OnlineSchools.org or their subsidiaries and is listing these links simply as a means of increasing public awareness.
ANNOUNCING THE 17TH ANNUAL SUMMER AUTISM INSTITUTE!
17th Annual Summer Autism Institute
June 23-27, 2014 at the Doubletree by Hilton in Burlington, Vermont
The Summer Autism Institute is a one-week intensive conference featuring international, national, and regional experts in autism spectrum disorders (ASD). The institute is open to community teams and the families they serve in Vermont and to interdisciplinary teams across the New England area, nationwide and abroad.
The event is hosted by the UVM College of Nursing & Health Sciences, Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders.
Featured presentations will include:
Outcomes research on preschool programming emphasizing the role of peers and inclusive educational practices for children with ASD
Theory of Mind (ToM) and its relationship to social communication challenges
Strategies to provide quality services for children with ASD using limited resources
Practices in early screening and detection using emerging technologies
What it’s like to live with autism
Please visit the Institute's website for more information.
COLLEGE STEPS SET TO ATTEND OREGON DISABILITY MEGACONFERENCE, OCTOBER 2013
The College Steps' executive team will be attending the Oregon Disability MegaConference as an invited speaker October 16th through the 18th, 2013 in Eugene Oregon. In its 6th year, the Oregon Disability MegaConference. From the Conference’s website:
“The Oregon Disability MegaConference is a coalition of disability organizations joining together to develop the only statewide disability MegaConference in Oregon. The purpose of the Oregon Disability MegaConference is to provide a cross-disability event bringing together people with disabilities, families, organizations, agencies, professionals, and service providers to learn from each other as well as encourage a statewide dialogue on important shared issues. Together, across all disabilities, we are able to educate, empower, inspire and connect people with disabilities, their family members, and those who support them.”
The College Steps team has been invited to speak on behalf of the innovative service we provide throughout the country.
COLLEGE STEPS STUDENT SELECTED TO ATTEND NATIONAL CONFERENCE ON AUTISM
Congratulations to Dashiell Monder for his recent selection as one of only 19 students nationally to attend the Autism Campus Inclusion Conference, 2013. Please see below for an article Dashiell wrote about the experience for the Rutland Herald.
The following article is provided courtesy of the Rutland Herald. Unlawful reproduction prohibited.
Living to Give: A self-advocate in Washington
DASHIELL MONDER | August 07,2013
I am Dashiell Monder, 21, from Shrewsbury and I am autistic.
I attend Castleton State College, write for the Spartan newspaper and am president of Living for Giving, a fundraising club that helps College Steps, a program that prepares high school students — many who are autistic — for college life.
Recently I went to the Autism Campus Inclusion conference in Washington, D.C., after my case manager Emily de Long from the Community Access Program in Rutland told me about it. She thought it would help me advocate for myself and others with autism. I felt nervous about applying because I was not sure of what the other applicants would think of me and whether I would be accepted.
Sponsored by Ari Ne’eman and the Autistic Self-Advocacy Network, the conference’s purpose is to speak out for people with all disabilities. Nineteen autistic college students were chosen from all over the country to attend the week-long conference. I was the only one from Vermont.
I went with Matt Marro, my support person from CAP. We left on June 9 and I felt a bit nervous about going to a new place. New situations can be confusing for a person with autism.
When we got to D.C., we met with Elizabeth Synclair of ASAN who took us to our dormitory at Thurston Hall at George Washington University. She had never taken the metro and had some trouble getting around, so I helped guide us to our destination.
I was anxious about meeting the other students because I have never been to a conference like this one.
That first night we had dinner at One Circle Hotel with the guest speaker Irving King Jordan, the first deaf president at Gallaudet College. He spoke about how he became the college’s present despite student protests. He is a role model for people with disabilities. He proves that a person with a disability can do any job.
I met students from Florida, Chicago, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia, and New York. All went to college and all identified as autistic.
One person I saw was Jim Sinclair, the leader of ACI. Sinclair travels by wheelchair with his cat named Rhapsody, his therapy cat which stayed in a cage underneath his wheelchair. Therapy animals can support the disabled or they can make a calming environment.
During the conference, there was a sensory room with stimulation toys, or stim-toys, beanbag chairs, and other things designed to help autistic students take a breather. This keeps our energy level “normal”. Each student had a stim-toy — mine is a toy car that I like to roll the wheels on. It helps decrease my anxiety and stress.
In high school, I was encouraged to play with stim-toys to help keep my stress level down, but elsewhere it is often discouraged because adults are not supposed to have toys. People without autism “stim” in acceptable ways like twirling their hair, tapping their foot, doodling, and twiddling their thumbs. The stims of autistic people are often misunderstood and less common, and therefore labeled as distracting.
One of the nights we had dinner at a restaurant with too much sensory overload. There was a very loud band, and it was horribly hard to concentrate on the conversation. All the autistic students in the group felt the same way — some even left to get away from the loud noise. Autistic people tend to feel better in a moderate sounding environment; loud noises can give us a headache.
During the week we also did mock activism on real issues like the Keep All Students Safe Act, and brainstormed ideas on how to speak with legislators. Legislators vote on the laws that affect everyone.
We put this into practice when we met Assistant Secretary Kathleen Martinez of the Office of Disability Employment Policy with the U.S. Department of Labor. She is blind and uses the Braille alphabet. It was the first time I’ve seen someone use that style of alphabet. I was amazed how she could read by touch and I felt inspired because she didn’t let the disability get in her way and found a way to succeed.
I also had a meeting at Sen. Bernard Sanders’ and Rep. Peter Welch’s offices. It is important for legislators to hear my story so these acts will be passed into law.
This was an awesome week. My favorite thing was meeting other people with disabilities just like me. When I attended a tiny elementary school, I used to think that I was the only one, but now I know that I am not alone. I learned that I should speak up for other people with disabilities who may not be able to speak for themselves, so I should give them a hand. My opinions about disabilities, rights, advocacy, and myself have changed because of this experience. I am trying to help myself more through self-advocacy.
To know more about me and what I do check out my Facebook page at www.Facebook.com/LivingforGivingclub.
Dashiell Monder is a student at Caslteton State College.