FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE (April 2007)
Contact: Kelsey Johnson, Communications Specialist, 979-862-4990 or kelsey_johnson@tamu.edu
Board of Regents Approves Designation for Center on Disability and Development
From The Bryan-College Station Eagle
March 31, 2007
"Regents create new lab to focus on disabilities"
By Holly Huffman
Eagle Staff Writer
The Texas A&M University System Board of Regents signed off Friday on the creation of a research center focusing on cognitive disabilities and how they can be overcome.
The mission of the Center for Disability and Development is to narrow the gap between people with disabilities and those without, thus improving the quality of life for the disabled, according to the proposal for the center's establishment.
Texas A&M students and professors working with the center will study the disabilities and devise the most effective methods for teaching both children and adults with disabilities such as dyslexia, autism and mental retardation. Those methods will then be shared with educators across the state and country.
"[It's] not just [for] school-aged kids, but transition services into adulthood," College of Education and Human Development Dean Doug Palmer told regents Friday - the second day of the group's two-day meeting.
Housed in the College of Education and Human Development, the center was established as part of a federal grant awarded to Texas A&M in fall 2005. The grant allowed the college to create a federally designated University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities - one of 65 across the country, Palmer said.
The Board of Regents' approval will allow the center to obtain additional federal, state and private funding as well as partner with other departments and colleges in the A&M System, the dean said.
There are more than 50 million Americans and four million Texans with disabilities and there are another 6.5 million children and youth receiving special education or similar services, according to center documents.
The center is funded by a five-year grant, which provides the program with $500,000 each year, according to center proposal documents.
Regent Gene Stallings, whose son has autism, said he was pleased to see the university starting such a program. He previously served on the national President's Committee for People with Intellectual Disabilities and said he often felt as though nothing was accomplished.
"We'd talk about what we talked about what we talked about," Stallings said. "Then we'd talk about what we talked about."
Palmer said roughly 250 undergraduates and 50 graduate students already are enrolled in the program and working with the center.
In other action Friday, Regents:
• Approved the creation of two more research centers: the Center for Statistical Bioinformatics and the Brent Snowcroft Institute of International Affairs.
The first center focuses on statistical models and analysis of life science molecular data research such as the possible earlier and easier detection of colon cancer, the center proposal states. It is a joint project between the statistics, electrical engineering and veterinary physiology and pharmacology departments, the Texas Engineering Experiment Station and the Texas Agricultural Experiment Station.
The second center, part of the George Bush School of Government and Public Service, will promote research in foreign policy and national security, the regents were told Friday.
• Dissolved three other centers - the Institute for the Gifted and Talented, the Center for Community Education and the Outdoor Education Institute - as part of a continuing evaluation process.
• Signed off on an A&M tuition increase of about $20 per semester credit hour. The actual rise in tuition won't be finalized until after lawmakers complete the state budget.
###