Georgia Senator Billy Hickman to Visit College to Participate in Roundtable Discussion with Disabled Students
Written by Tianna Faulkner on .
September 11, 2024 (Atlanta, GA) - Georgia Senator Billy Hickman will host a roundtable discussion with intellectually disabled students Wednesday, September 18th from 2:00pm to 3:00pm at Georgia Southern University to talk about the students’ experiences with education, employment, and daily living. The students are a part of Georgia Southern University’s EAGLE Academy, an Inclusive Post Secondary Education (IPSE) program funded by the Georgia Council on Developmental Disabilities (GCDD).
Georgia Southern University, located in Statesboro, Georgia, is in Georgia’s 4th district, which Hickman represents in the senate. The roundtable discussion with take place in the university’s College of Education building. The purpose of the discussion is to help Senator Hickman become more familiar with and to act on issues important to Georgia’s disability community, including students with disabilities who want to enter the workforce after school.
“We will be discussing the impact of Inclusive Post Secondary Education (IPSE) programs and what IPSE means. These programs allow students with and without disabilities to matriculate through college together. Currently there are ten IPSE programs throughout the state of Georgia, including Georgia State University’s IDEAL, the University of Georgia’s Destination Dawgs, Georgia Institute of Technology EXCEL programs, and Georgia Southern University’s EAGLE Academy, said Charlie Miller, GCDD’s Legislative Advocacy Director. “We will have a roundtable of students who live with a disability to share with the senator their experience in the EAGLE IPSE program, their daily living experiences in general, as well as employment opportunities that are available to them after college. We want to focus the conversation on employment and helping students with disabilities find employment and entering the workforce after college.”
“We are so excited about Senator Hickman making a site visit to one of our IPSE schools,” said Starr Bruner, GCDD’s Inclusive Post-Secondary Education & Employment Director. “It just demonstrates that state representatives care about this community and are interested in learning more about the issues they face to help make the necessary changes needed that will contribute to the disability community’s quality of life and daily living, including education and employment.”
GCDD distributes State of Georgia funds to 10 universities/colleges/technical schools across the state to lead Inclusive Post Secondary Education (IPSE) college programs that offer students with intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DD) a variety of experiences and opportunities for growth as they prepare for the next chapter of their lives. The GAIPSEC website helps potential students to navigate their college options. This website provides a way to discover the colleges and universities in Georgia committed to inclusive post secondary education. The Center for Leadership in Disability (CLD) at Georgia State University works in partnership with GCDD on the Georgia Inclusive Post Secondary Education Consortium (GAIPSEC). This project leads a group of professional stakeholders dedicated to ensuring that every Georgia student has access to learning after high school, regardless of an intellectual disability. For more information, visit https://gcdd.org/current-projects/education.
About the Georgia Council on Developmental Disabilities: The Georgia Council on Developmental Disabilities (GCDD) is the State's leader in advancing public policy on behalf of persons with developmental disabilities. Its mission is to bring about social and policy changes that promote opportunities for the wide spectrum of diverse people/persons with developmental disabilities and their families to live, learn, work, play, and worship in their communities. www.gcdd.org
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