From the Detroit News:

Micah Fialka-Feldman will present petitions with 1,000 signatures to the board of trustees of Michigan’s Oakland University this week, formally requesting permission to live in the school’s dorm. Oakland has previously said that Fialka-Feldman, who participates in an on-campus program for people with cognitive disabilities, can’t live in the dorm because he is not a student.

“He’s more of a student than a lot of other students here,” said Steve Clark, 22, president of the student body, who will speak on Fialka-Feldman’s behalf Wednesday. “I think the essence of student government is to stick up for students. Legally he may not be a student, but in every other realm he is.”

Earlier post here.

From the Oakland [Michigan] Press:

Micah Fialka-Feldman, a 24-year-old man with a mild cognitive disability, is challenging a decision by Michigan’s Oakland University that bars him from living in a college dormitory.

Fialka-Feldman has been attending the university since 2003 under the school’s OPTIONS program for students with disabilities, and had been promised a spot in the dorm.

The university later withdrew its approval. A spokesman for the school said he can’t live in the dorm because he is not on a path toward a four-year degree.

(more…)

From the Washington Post, a feature on the growing number of students with learning disabilities who are entering college. Twenty years ago, only one in 100 students with learning disabilities would graduate from high school and go on to a four-year college. Today, that number is about one in nine.

For many, the transition isn’t easy. Many colleges have programs to assist students, but …

what colleges must do is far less defined legally, and professors and administrators at some schools seem to remain skeptical about the needs that students might have. Schools must provide assistance to students, but only if the students disclose their disabilities.

… The students who are most successful, experts say, are the ones who adapt quickly to independence from their parents and become their own advocates.

From the Washington Post:

A planned four-acre development at Gallaudet University represents a dramatic shift in philosophy at the nation’s only institution of higher learning for deaf students. For the first time in its 144-year history, the school is designing buildings and streetscape with the express purpose of bringing together deaf and hearing people.

Officials say the changes at the campus in Northeast Washington are driven by cultural shifts, as a younger generation of students desires more integration into the broader world. Historically, the school’s separation was prompted by public stigma against deaf people, and a corresponding belief that they were better off immersing themselves in their own culture.

“It would create a connection to the city and tear down the walls,” said Hansel Bauman (above left), an architect retained by Gallaudet to help design the project. “It’s a sea change in thinking.”

Gallaudet drew national attention two years ago, when students shut down the campus to demonstrate against the selection of a new president.

(Photo: Hansel Bauman and Fred Weiner, Gallaudet’s executive director for preogram development. From the Washington Post )

NPR features a series on students with disabilities preparing and transitioning to college with the following segments:

Q&A: Prepping Kids With Disabilities For College—NPR

Roger Diehl (photo left), a freshman at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who has Asperger’s, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and depression, and his mother Sita Diehl, who runs Tennessee’s National Alliance On Mental Illness (NAMI), answer questions about getting ready for college.

Roger emphasizes the importance of focusing on the individual strengths and interests of students while learning social rules. Sita says social support is essential, particularly family and good friends, when considering placement.

See earlier post on Roger Diehl here.

10 Tips For College Students With Disabilities—NPR

Clinical psychologist and author Kathleen G. Nadeau shares strategies from her book, “Survival Guide for College Students with ADHD or LD” for developing learning and organization strategies to cope with learning disabilities at college.

Learning To Thrive With Attention Deficit Disorder—NPR

Emily Algire shares her story of transitioning to college as a student with attention deficit disorder (ADD).

“I think she’s got very good self-awareness” says [Emily's mother Betty] Overby. And all the tools she’s been taught for coping with her ADD are helping her feel strong.”

Editor’s note: Are Emily and Betty any relation to NPR correspondent Peter Overby?

(NPR photo)

By Sue Shellenbarger in the Wall Street Journal:

Students with learning disabilities are applying to colleges at five times the rate of the 1980s; colleges have only recently begun to provide services for qualified students with disabilities and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Attitudes and programs vary widely between schools.

While federal law has led to standardized jargon and services in K-12 education, the law for colleges simply requires them to make “reasonable accommodations” for students with disabilities.

Colleges lack universal labels to describe their supports, and guidebooks and educational consultants use no less than a half-dozen terms … to describe various service levels.

Shellenbarger offers tips and resources to help parents cut through the thicket, and says campus visits are crucial in selecting a school.

See also : Peterson’s: Colleges for Students with Learning Disabilities.

NPR follows 18-year-old Roger Diehl as he starts his freshman year at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Roger was an A-student throughout high school, but the prospect of leaving his Nashville home to go to college has been especially challenging for him and his family. Roger has ADHD and autism, and has had recurrent bouts of clinical depression.

He and his family have made college plans that build in supports for him, and have obtained legal documents that will allow a family member to make medical and financial decisions on Roger’s behalf if he becomes incapacitated. “I actually feel that it’s adding to my independence, because I feel they’ll be more responsive to my wishes than someone I don’t know,” he said.

Also on NPR: Why my autistic son misbehaves — commentary by Jennifer Hendrick