Ohio State's TOPS Program Celebrates its first Commencement (OH UCEDD/LEND)
May 11, 2015
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| Students in the first graduating cohort of TOPS toss their caps in the air in celebration after a commencement ceremony on May 8. Credit: Amanda Etchison / Campus Editor |
A soft recording of "Pomp and Circumstance" played as the doors to the Ross Heart Hospital auditorium swung open to reveal a line of seven beaming soon-to-be-graduates.
Wearing traditional black robes and scarlet and gray tassels, the students - the first graduating cohort from the Transition Options in Postsecondary Settings program - walked single file to their seats at the front of the room, sat down and eagerly awaited for their moment to walk across the stage and receive their certificates at a commencement ceremony held on Friday.
Formed five years ago, the TOPS program exists under Ohio State's Nisonger Center, a University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities that offers services such as clinics and is involved in activities like psychopharmacology research, according to its website. The center provides education, service and research to individuals of all ages.
The TOPS program is offered to individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities and provides the opportunity to participate in college classes and internships, receive job and employment preparation and experience campus social life, according to the TOPS website.
The program at OSU is one of 27 similar programs offered throughout the country. TOPS helps prepare individuals for higher education or employment after they have completed high school, said TOPS program manager Eliseo Jimenez.
"We like to marry the academics and the employment piece together so that when they graduate from our program, they have a job and the academics to back it up," Jimenez said.
Through a program structure that emphasizes four main goals - academics, employment, independent living and self-determination and student development - students in TOPS are given the choice to participate in a two- or four-year course of study.
Four of the students recognized at the TOPS commencement ceremony received four-year generalized studies certificates, which means they completed 120 credit hours - 60 academic hours and 60 employment hours - in their four years within the program, Jimenez said.
Three students received a two-year certificate of completion, which means they completed 60 credit hours - 30 academic hours and 30 employment hours - in their two years within the TOPS program.
Jimenez said he thinks the program's first commencement ceremony celebrates the hard work and dedication the TOPS students have put into succeeding at their personal goals.
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Students in the first graduating cohort of TOPS toss their caps in the air in celebration after a commencement ceremony on May 8. Credit: Amanda Etchison / Campus Editor
"The biggest piece is that it is not about the disability. It is not ‘them' and ‘us,' it should be one. I think that it is just seeing the university coming together to celebrate how we achieved this giant goal," he said. "We set the bar high, and I think that (at the) graduation, people (saw) that we have students who can reach that bar. Some have actually gone beyond it."
