James Fox, Campus Carrier staff writer
Starting next Fall, Berry will become one of many colleges nationwide offering an Inclusive Post-Secondary Education (IPSE) program, which will offer people with intellectual disabilities the chance to immerse themselves in the college experience for two years. In the prorgam, IPSE students will not earn any credits and will instead audit courses. However, the program opens up the opportunity to enroll in a college to earn a degree later. IPSE students will also be participating in internships for LifeWorks, which will give them valuable work experience for when they apply for jobs in the future.
Michelle Haney is responsible for bringing the IPSE program to Berry. She has spent the past 10 years advocating for an IPSE program.
“About ten 10 years ago a parent came to me,” Haney said. “She had a son who was leaving high school. She had heard about this program at Kennesaw [State University] where [intellectually disabled] students could have a college experience. She said, ‘Could we try this at Berry?’”
In addition to Kennesw, both UGA and Georgia Tech have IPSE programs. Berry is the first Georgia private school to adopt IPSE, which has led to cost and financial aid challenges.
“They’re paying a little over $10,000 a year for the program,” Haney said. “That includes their lunch while they’re here. It includes wherever they are during the day having somebody with them to the extent they need it. There isn’t financial aid, not right now. We do hope that we will have some down the road.”
Junior Sara Alexander is hoping that IPSE students will be eligible for the HOPE scholarship, which is available for IPSE students at other universities in Georgia.
“[Lack of financial aid] is something that Dr. Haney and [IPSE Coordinator Anne Bice] are so frustrated in addition to all of us, because we’re talking about the barriers,” Alexander said, “You already have so many barriers in this position for families. You can’t get HOPE scholarship like every other student could. But we have a plan in place. Dr. Haney, and Anne, and all of us are working towards getting that.”
Everyone involved is trying to make IPSE more accessible. The ultimate goal of IPSE is to offer opportunities to one of the most historically marginalized groups of people worldwide.
“Before 1975, people with intellectual disabilities and other disabilities were banned from going to public school period, and often were institutionalized at birth or as soon as someone could make a diagnosis,” Haney said.
Brown v. Board of Education, which repealed the separate but equal clause, allowed activists for the intellectually disabled to make significant progress, going off the momentum of the Civil Rights Movement. There are still very few options for people with intellectual disabilities after high school.
“When [people with intellectual disabilities] age out of high school, they can usually stay until they’re 21, that’s it,” Haney said. “There’s many many people with intellectual disabilities that do nothing when they graduate from high school, or if they have jobs they may not have had much choice in what those are. Often if they have jobs, they involve things like cleaning, janitorial work, maybe some work in a kitchen. And those are fine jobs, but sometimes there’s no choice.”
Haney hopes that the IPSE program will allow students a chance to decide their own futures. The program has admitted three students for next semester.
A group of peer mentors is helping Haney start the program. Junior Olivia Sullivan is one of many students looking forward to being a peer mentor next semester.
“My academic advisor is Dr. Haney, and she’s the one who really brought this program to my awareness and I just thought it sounded like such a great opportunity because I feel like I’ve grown so much as a person,” Sullivan said. “I really wanted to help give that opportunity to a population that has been denied this experience.”
Alexander also expressed excitement about the opportunity to be involved with IPSE and work as a peer mentor.
“I talked to Dr. Haney the other day and I told her that I am proud to be a part of [IPSE],” Alexander said. “It’s been a very moving experience, a very humbling experience, especially learning the history of what access for education for people with disabilities has been like throughout the years.”
Haney and her team are still looking for more volunteers that would be interested in getting involved in the IPSE program next semester and hope they can get all kinds of students from many different majors to accommodate the interests of the incoming IPSE students.
“I think anybody should get involved,” Alexander said. “You’re just volunteering to be a friend. Just being your own awesome self is all you have to do. We do want a lot of diversity in the volunteer group. Right now we have a lot of psychology majors, which is great, but it depends on what these students’ interests are. We want to support them.”