Theory and Practice: Establishing a Career Path for Students with Disabilities

By Joan Leotta

Obtaining a good education is an important first step toward making your way in the world. A college education is one such good step. Directing the economic power of college-educated people with disabilities into jobs is the full time concern of the University of Tennessee's (UT) Alan Muir, Executive Director of Career Opportunities for Students with Disabilities; Dr. Robert Greenberg, Director of UT Career Services; and Crystal Gilreath, Coordinator, UT Disability Careers Office.

As part of Career Opportunities for Students with Disabilities (COSD), based at UT, Muir developed the idea of a campus entity to bridge the gap between disability services and career services at a college of university. Muir's work helped establish the UT Disability Careers Office, where Crystal Gilreath works directly with students. Her office is the "example unit" for Muir and Greenberg's idea, formed on the basis of their research. Anecdotal evidence and numbers attest to the success of their idea and its operative model at UT. The UT Disability Careers Office Website offers this quote from a student: "The interview with the government arranged by Disability-Careers was the greatest opportunity I have received from UT. It provided a paid internship and an opportunity for a permanent position after graduation. Thanks for making it possible, Disability Career Services!"

Need for the Program

In 1998, Dr. Greenberg realized that his Career Services office was not adequately serving students with disabilities. He felt the key to resolving this situation was to make it easier for those students to effectively use Career Services. Muir adds, "The unemployment rate for college students with disabilities is estimated to be over 30 percent. Students with disabilities rarely use the career services office on campus for career planning or job placement assistance. The result is that they often lack career goals, internships, and other critical experiential education building blocks, unfairly rendering them uncompetitive versus their counterparts without disabilities." Upon this realization, Greenberg began the process of building a program that would focus on career planning by hiring Muir.

Theory

Muir notes, "In 1998, when I was hired to spearhead the project that would get students with disabilities to take advantage of what was being offered at UT. At first we searched for a model program to emulate. But we quickly learned that there was none. We (Greenberg and I) visited 20 universities, and 23 national employers to learn best practices and understand what was needed. Although we found no model to follow, we made many contacts and built strong relationships that have since proven invaluable to the current program. We took bits and pieces of things we had seen on the road and pulled them together to make our program."

The newly established organizational relationships evolved into COSD, a unique and dynamic national organization that creates innovative solutions for the critical transition-related problems that college graduates encounter in their career searches. There are more than 350 member entities, including universities, companies, and U.S. government agencies, who work together to focus on career employment opportunities for college graduates with disabilities. Many of COSD's member organizations offer internships, as well as jobs so that students with disabilities can gain valuable job experience. Rather than work directly with only students, COSD works to spread the message of the need for such programs to universities and employers.

Major universities that participate with COSD include: the University of California at Berkeley, San Jose State University, Ohio State University, Columbia University, and of course the University of Tennessee. Many Fortune 500 companies grace the list as members, including IBM, Exxon-Mobil, Motorola and Microsoft. Government agencies that participate are NASA and the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA).

The national COSD initiative is federally funded through a grant provided by the U.S. Department of Labor's Office of Disability Employment Policy. Its joint goals are to train both disability services staff and career services professionals at universities, and spread the word on careers for persons with disabilities among potential employers. The underlying mission is to encourage collaboration between university disability offices and career services centers. Each year, Muir makes numerous presentations throughout the country, demonstrating that the greater the collaboration between, the greater the results for college graduates with disabilities.

COSD hosts an annual meeting, which is sponsored by one of its corporate members. The sponsor plays a vital role in sharing how their company has developed and implemented strategies to employ college graduates with disabilities. The fifth Annual COSD meeting, sponsored by Motorola, will be held in May 2004. The meeting will provide an occasion for universities to share how to interact more effectively with career track resources in their own communities.

The COSD Website, www.cosdonline.org, provides one way for members to stay connected between annual meetings. The site also spreads the word about the work of COSD and the good results of employing college students with disabilities.

Leading by Example - the Program at UT

The University of Tennessee program has the advantage of being funded by the University, and in part, by the Tennessee State Vocational Rehabilitation agency and enjoys a close working relationship with that agency. "This is an advantage we cannot export," notes UT Program Coordinator, Crystal Gilreath, "but we do advocate working closely with state agencies." Gilreath's full-time salary is paid by the Tennessee vocational rehabilitation agency.

"Publicity generated about COSD helps bring more awareness to the individual college programs," says Gilreath. "We are fortunate to have good funding at UT although, like all college programs today, we and the other [programs at the] individual campus level are always looking for more funding."

The data support Muir's idea that UT's Disability-Careers Office is an example of a successful program. In 2002, Gilreath saw 185 students and placed almost half. Figures from the graduates of the year 2000 show that 39 percent of the students she saw remain in school -- many in graduate programs -- and 48.5 percent are working at full-time jobs. "These figures compare very well to figures in the Careers Services Office's data which tracks all students," says Gilreath.

"We see students with chronic arthritis, epilepsy, asthma, psychological disorders, back injuries, and depression, as well as students who are blind, deaf, have mobility impairments or [have] other visible disabilities," says Gilreath. "In fact, the hidden disabilities are more prevalent on the UT campus. About forty percent [of students who use our services] have learning disabilities or psychological disabilities, and about forty percent have chronic conditions of one sort or another."

Working with students on the campus level is more complex than simply making them aware that the career services office can help them obtain interviews, assistance with resumes, and possibly a job. For students with disabilities, awareness of potential jobs and opportunities represents just a small part of the process. A large part of Gilreath's mission is to create a safe atmosphere for students who want answers to such questions as: "How will I tell my employer about my disability? Should I tell? If so, when should I tell them?"

UT's user-friendly website career.UTK.edu/dco/ provides students with direction for dealing with sensitive issues in a private manner. Students can browse a matrix of scenarios that address the disclosure issue and review options that provide in helping during the job-hunt process.

The disclosure matrix is one of the tools that Gilreath uses in work with students. "I feel that the Website helps establish the atmosphere of trust necessary for an office such as ours to operate and succeed," she explains. "I'm not an advisor to the students," emphasizes Gilreath. "I try to steer the students to a range of choices they and to the tools that can help better understand those choices."

Theory to Practice

The work done at the UT Disability Careers Office shows the success of the COSD's guiding principle: If colleges provide a bridge between the office of disabilities and the office of career services, students will cross it and enter the world of work.

Edited by Mary-Louise Piner