In This Issue

Early Learning Opportunities Support Quality and Access

Director’s Corner

Daring to Dream Awards

New EC Resource

In memoriam: Marcia Lovell

LEARNS: Work Keeps Team Hopping

IDS Curriculum Changes

Dissemination Team Leads Web Accessibility

Collaboration Brings Speaker to Maine

Center Sponsors Exhibit Venue for VSA arts

Center Hosts Visiting Fulbright Scholar

UMaine Students Lead EC Conference

10 Students Graduate TOP Program

Healthy & Ready to Work: Engaging Youth in Their Future

Standards for All Model: Personalizing Elementary Education

Selected Presentations & Publications

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IDS Curriculum Changes Expand Offerings

Ruth-Ellen Cohen (left), reporter for the Bangor Daily News, interviews Brad Bosse (right), a junior at UMaine with a concentration in Interdisciplinary Disability Studies. Bosse discussed research he and partner Ben Moreau conducted for their final class project evaluating the accessibility of local movie theaters. Bosse, Moreau, and approximately 16 other students presented final projects at a student poster session staged for The University of Maine community in April. Cohen's article about the students' research appeared in the May 19 edition of the Bangor Daily News. (Kimberly Sawtelle, photo)

Building on the excellent curriculum of the past 20 years, the Center for Community Inclusion and Disability Studies has revised and expanded its Interdisciplinary Disability Studies (IDS) offerings. This year, the Center launched a new undergraduate introductory elective course, DIS 200 Disability and the Environment. Students in this course are introduced to disability studies and universal access theory, and challenged to examine disability and responses to it from many different viewpoints.

Under the guidance of a university-wide IDS Academic Committee, the undergraduate concentration in Interdisciplinary Disability Studies has been revised to focus on disability within the larger context of diversity and universal access, and to examine professional practice, scholarship, and policy from these perspectives. As a result of these changes in the undergraduate offerings, the number of students enrolled in courses has increased.

The students who completed the IDS concentration this year produced work aimed at expanding universal access in all aspects of our communities. Some examples:

• Exploring and advancing universal access to the movies;
• Working with The University of Maine administration
to identify access barriers and improve access to the
physical, virtual, and sensory environments and resources
on campus;
• Improving access to recreation and social locations in and
around campus;
• Surveying graduates of the IDS concentration for the
purpose of improving courses; and
• Creating a resource guide for teachers identifying
universally accessible books and teaching materials.

For the coming academic year, the Center anticipates working with the IDS faculty and Academic Committee to revise the graduate concentration. Because of high enrollment, DIS 200 will be offered every fall and spring semester and we look forward to the work produced by each new crop of students.

— Liz DePoy