ERIN O’BRIEN: “Until everyone is included, no one is included.” This is the motto for the InclusiveU Program, which gives students with intellectual and developmental disabilities a college education at Syracuse University. Meet Olivia Baist, a junior in the program, who lives in a residence hall on campus.
OLIVIA BAIST: I live in Sadler Hall and my roommate is Maggie. You get to meet new people and I got a double (room) and it’s really fun.
O’BRIEN: Living in a residence hall is one of the key parts of InclusiveU that gives students the college experience. Student Support Coordinator Samuel Roux says InclusiveU’s primary focus now is increasing the number of students living on campus.
SAMUEL ROUX: It would be great if we start to get that number to at least fifty percent of the students if not more. So, I think that’s probably one of the biggest keys to our growth right now is to continue to expand the amount of students that we had living in the resident’s halls.
O’BRIEN: Along with living in the dorms, InclusiveU students take classes and declare a major. Olivia’s major is studio arts.
BAIST: I am taking lots of classes right now. Sculpture and PED 1, core training, I got one yesterday in person yesterday, it was so much fun I was on my yoga mat doing downward dog like that.
O’BRIEN: Students in InclusiveU graduate after three years of classes, and one year working at an internship. As Olivia gets closer to her senior year, Sam will help her and her fellow students start to adjust to life in the workplace.
BAIST: I’m a junior right now, next year I’ll be a senior and an internship.
ROUX: So, we’ve asked Liv, to prepare for her internship year, to dress, you know, like professionally Monday through Thursday to kind of get in the habit of that. Otherwise, she’ll just be wearing, you know, t-shirt and gym shorts.
BAIST: That’s what I’m doing right now because it’s T-G-I-F, so that’s what I’m doing right now.
O’BRIEN: Roux says 100 percent of their interns who pursued employment after graduation were able to secure meaningful employment within six months of graduation. SU sophomore Julianne Strauss is a part of the peer-to-peer mentorship program for InclusiveU. It encourages InclusiveU students and Syracuse University students to spend time together and get involved on campus. She says she enjoys working with such a unique program.
JULIANNE STRAUSS: You don’t really like know coming into college you don’t know of like students, like, that have disabilities that come to college like they’re students they take classes they go and they get a certificate after their four years here at Syracuse and I think it’s a really awesome program for them.
O’BRIEN: InclusiveU is one of the first programs of its kind and continues to pave the way for more programs across the country.
ROUX: Over the last few years it’s become very common, and we see tons of schools across the country starting programs like this, or in the process of trying to start programs like ours. So, I would say that it’s really exploded over the last few years, um, but we are one of the that operates kind of at the level and amount of students that we have.
O’BRIEN: InclusiveU has grown immensely since its start in 2002.
ROUX: InclusiveU started with only two full time staff and now we have five full time staff, um, so that has grown, and you know so we hope to keep growing in that way, and we’re gonna keep accepting around 20 to 25 students a year so we should, you know, we should be breaking 100 students this fall.
O’BRIEN: As the program continues to grow, it opens more doors for students, like Olivia, all over the country. The 100 students entering the program this fall will be their biggest class to date.
Erin O’Brien, NCC NEWS.
SYRACUSE, N.Y. (NCC NEWS) – “Until everyone is included, no one is included.” This is the motto for Syracuse University’s InclusiveU program. InclusiveU provides students with intellectual and developmental disabilities a college education through an initiative from the Taishoff Center for Inclusive Education at Syracuse University.
Olivia Baist, a junior in the program, lives in a residence hall on campus.
“I live in Sadler Hall, and my roommate is Maggie,” she said. “You get to meet new people and I got a double (room), and it’s really fun.”
Living in a residence hall on campus is one of the key parts of InclusiveU that gives students the college experience. Samuel Roux, the student support coordinator for InclusiveU, said their primary focus right now is to increase the number of students living on campus.
“It would be great if we start to get that number to at least 50% of the students, if not more,” Roux said. “So, I think that’s probably one of the biggest keys to our growth right now is to continue to expand the amount of students that we had living in the residence halls.”
Students in the program take a variety of classes and declare a major. Baist’s major is studio art. She is taking a sculpture class, along with an exercise class and a seminar that teaches her how to plan for her week and eat healthy. Students take three years of classes and then participate in an internship program their fourth year. Olivia is currently preparing for her internship in the fall.
“So, we’ve asked Baist to prepare for her internship year, to dress professionally Monday through Thursday to kind of get in the habit of that,” Roux said. “Otherwise, she’ll just be wearing a t-shirt and gym shorts.”
Roux said 100% of their student interns who pursued employment after graduation were able to secure meaningful employment within six months of graduation. He said the program is intended to connect students to internships that pertain to their majors. For example, food studies majors may have an internship in food services or dining halls on campus.
InclusiveU also has the Peer-to-Peer mentorship program, which connects InclusiveU students and Syracuse University students. Students spend one-on-one time together as a way for InclusiveU students to meet more students on campus and get involved in clubs and activities. Julianne Strauss, a sophomore at Syracuse University, is a peer partner and said she enjoys working with the program.
“You don’t really know coming into college. You don’t know of students that have disabilities that come to college,” she said. “They’re students, they take classes, they go and they get a certificate after their four years here at Syracuse and I think it’s a really awesome program for them.”
The InclusiveU program was one of the first of its kind, and it has helped pave the way for other universities across the country.
“Over the last few years, it’s become very common, and we see tons of schools across the country starting programs like this or in the process of trying to start programs like ours,” Roux said. ” So, I would say that it’s really exploded over the last few years, but we are one of the few that operates kind of at the level and amount of students that we have.”
Since its start in 2002, InclusiveU has actively worked towards growing their program’s numbers.
“InclusiveU started with only two full-time staff, and now we have five full time staff,” Roux said. “We hope to keep growing in that way, and we’re gonna keep accepting around 20 to 25 students a year so we should be breaking 100 students this fall.”
This fall will be InclusiveU’s largest class to date. As they continue to grow the program, it will open the door for more students, like Baist, all across the country.
