The Center for Community Inclusion and Disability Studies (ME UCEDD) Receives Distance Education Grant for Course on Universal Design

February 19, 2008

The Center for Community Inclusion and Disability Studies is pleased to announce that Assistant Research Professor Valerie Smith (Co-Coordinator of Community Services), and Associate Professor Tina Passman (Department of Modern Languages and Classics), were recently awarded a $1500 online course development grant as part of the UMaine Continuing Education Division's 11th Annual Grant Program. Smith and Passman are members of the UCEDD's Equity and Excellence in Higher Education: A Universal Design for Learning Collaboration and the Interdisciplinary Disability Studies Academic Committee.

Their 300-level online interdisciplinary course, Foundations of Universal Design: The Ecology of Human Environments, investigates the new paradigm of human communities that addresses the diversity of all potential users. The environments considered include physical, social, educational, commercial, spiritual, and creative communities.

Smith and Passman plan to offer the course in Fall 2008.