Program lets students with disabilities earn degrees
College Living Experience helps students with learning disabilities and other special needs adjust to adult life and higher education in six locations around the U.S., including one in Austin.
Students enrolled in the program may have dyslexia, ADHD, Asperger’s Syndrome or other autism spectrum disorders, said Amy Radochonski, assistant vice president of operations.
The program began in 1989 and was acquired by Educational Services of America in 2003, Radochonski said.
The Austin office and student apartment complex is located next to the Austin Community College Northridge campus, about 12 miles from UT Austin. The program include housing, where various amenities and a resident advisor are available to the students.
“We provide for students to cope with their challenges and develop strategies to work on those challenges and overcome any obstacles that they have,” Radochonski said. “And that’s really provided by a team of individuals that work with the students and instruction that takes place on an ongoing basis.”
Students go on to earn vocational certificates, associate or bachelor’s degrees, Radochonski said.
“We have students studying for a variety of different fields,” Radochonski said. “Some students, for example, plan on becoming a certified medical assistant; there are other students that are interested in teaching and childhood
development.”
-- Evelyn Ngugi
Campus LGBT group, F.A.G.S., under pressure to change name
Shimmery glitter-covered posters with the phrase “The F.A.G.S. are back” have caused a heated stir of discussion among San Diego City College staff and administration.
“If the campus is making a big deal, perhaps it is due to the controversy caused by restrictions of our freedom of speech,” President Jason Frye-Kolarik said, “and the fact that someone actually made them think outside the box for 2 seconds.”
Last spring semester the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Student Union opted for a name change, now known as the Fellowship of Associated Gay Students.
Frye-Kolarik, the president of both City and Mesa’s FAGS, introduced the name change to his fellow members during the past spring semester.
“By a show of hands we went from alphabet soup to FAGS and experienced some difficulty from upstairs,” Frye-Kolarik said. There is no ulterior motive in letting people know “the F.A.G.S. are back.”
-- Uwire
Study finds some biracials more prone to mental health issues
Biracial Americans of Asian and white descent are twice as likely to be diagnosed with a psychological disorder compared to monoracial Asian Americans, according to a new study from the Asian American Center on Disparities Research at University of California-Davis.
This is the first nationwide study to look at mental health from the standpoint of biracial individuals, said Lauren Berger, a UC-Davis psychology graduate student. More than 6.8 million people in the 2000 U.S. census identify as more than one race.
“Asian and white biracials are the largest Asian biracial population [in the U.S.],” Berger said. “There is some evidence indicating that they may not be doing as well adjustment-wise as their monoracial counterparts.”
This population is often ignored in psychological research, and their adjustment may be more precarious due to their marginalized status, Berger said.
“It took me years to fully integrate my distinctly separate Asian and American heritages into one cohesive identity … to realize that reconciliation of the two [cultures] did not mean sacrificing one for the other,” said Danielle Currie in an e-mail interview, a biology major at CSU Long Beach who is Chinese-White.
-- Uwire
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