Rayne Nelson, a 21-year-old sophomore at Landmark College in Putney, Vt., does not let her attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (A.D.H.D.) throw her off track.
Ms. Nelson is paying most of her own way at Landmark, a two-year college exclusively for students with learning disabilities and A.D.H.D. She wants to graduate on time this spring, and with tuition and fees alone at $48,000 a year — more than any other college in the nation — she cannot give in to distraction.
“I have a lot riding on this,” says Ms. Nelson, who is also dyslexic. She wants to transfer to a four-year institution and get a bachelor's degree — a goal that would have been out of reach, she says, had she not found Landmark three years after graduating from high school. If Ms. Nelson gets her associate degree in May after four semesters, she will buck the trend at Landmark.
Only about 30 per cent graduate within three years; many others drop out after a semester or two. The numbers suggest that even with all the special help and the ratio of one teacher for every five students, the transition is not easy.
About half of the 500 students at Landmark are recent high school graduates or, like Ms. Nelson, arrive after a period of drifting. Most of the others have tried and failed at college already, coming with the goal of getting the academic or organisational skills they need to succeed at a four-year college or to enter the workforce.
What federal law says
Federal law requires all colleges to provide some accommodations for the learning disabled — tutoring, for example, or extra time on exams — and with the rapid increase in students with diagnosed learning disabilities, many mainstream colleges and universities are trying to serve them better. But they still fall short, experts say, for those who need help not just with study skills like how to take notes and write papers, but also with basic daily functions like getting to class on time. Proactive parents might help these students make it through high school, but they face steep odds once they leave home.
For such students, options are growing. Mitchell College, a small residential campus in New London, Conn., now offers a transition year in which students earn transferable credits while preparing for college life. Beacon College in Leesburg, Fla., like Landmark a degree-granting institution for the learning disabled, plans to add a summer programme for college-bound students by 2012 and take 100 more students by 2014.
Among for-profit ventures, the College Internship Program helps 18- to 26-year-olds learn social, academic and life skills, including how to study, manage money and even cook. It is expanding its summer transition programme for new high school graduates to each of its locations in five states. Landmark, too, is expanding its summer programme, to North Carolina, Oregon and California.
Issues
All of these programmes are expensive and, given the economic downturn, out of reach for many. This fall, for the first time, Landmark did not meet its enrolment target, with 26 fewer students than planned. “Applications and acceptances were up,” says Dale Herold, the college's vice-president for enrolment management, “but when it came down to paying, the follow-through wasn't there. The economy this year was like, whoa.”
The drop is a serious matter for a small, tuition-dependent college. Landmark has an endowment of only about $11 million. One reason is that the college is relatively young — it is celebrating its 25th anniversary this school year. Another, officials say, is that alumni are reluctant to donate because of the stigma attached to attending a school for the learning disabled.
Some students struggling in mainstream colleges decide to spend just a “bridge semester” at Landmark to get help specifically with time management and productivity. MacLean Gander, who teaches writing to these students, says many of those in his class are talented writers but routinely fail to show up for class or hand in papers. They are students like Isabel Jacob, 19, who has A.D.H.D. and was asked to leave Salve Regina College in Newport, R.I., after failing three courses her freshman year, and Michaela Brunell, 20, who fell behind at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. “I loved it my first year,” Ms. Brunell says, “but as my classes got more work-oriented, I didn't have good strategies set up.”
At the college
On its face, Landmark College does not look like one of the nation's most expensive schools. The academic buildings are squat and plain, the grounds understated, and some dorm rooms have a 1970s-era feel. Likewise, in many classrooms there are only subtle hints of the learning disabilities that make college so challenging for the students there. Some might speak so quickly that they are hard to follow; others might trail off in the middle of answering a question, distracted or grasping unsuccessfully for the right words.
One afternoon in an English class, a student frequently asked the professor to repeat what he had just said. In a seminar about learning disabilities, meant to help students understand their diagnoses, a young woman was using three differently coloured pens to highlight text, a strategy to process what they read: one colour might indicate unfamiliar words, and another the facts that could show up on a test.
“We're dealing with really bright students here,” says Michael Nieckoski, Landmark's director of educational technology services. “In some ways they may be even smarter than your average undergraduate, because they've spent most of their lives trying to either overcome their diagnosis or outsmart everyone.”
By the time they get to Landmark, though, some are so far behind that the chances of catching up are slim. Linda J. Katz, the college president, says about 20 of the 220 new students this past fall could not read above a sixth-grade level. They started out working on basic skills in non-credit courses. This fall, about six per cent of Landmark students were taking only non-credit courses; another 16 per cent were getting partial credit while they worked on reading and writing. Those with more than basic skills take a for-credit curriculum that includes classes in literature, history and science.
First semester
During their first semester, students are steeped in techniques for keeping up with schoolwork. For note-taking, they are taught to divide a page into two columns, recording as much of the lecture as possible on one side and main ideas and topics on the other. For time management, they are given planners and told to schedule everything from when they will start a homework assignment to when they will eat dinner.
Every student who needs it gets assistive technology. Those who have trouble reading, for example, can listen to a computer reading their textbooks instead. Those who struggle with writing and spelling can dictate a research paper to a computer that will transcribe it.
Meghan Benzel, a third-semester student with A.D.H.D. and nonverbal learning disorder, says being able to listen to her reading assignments had made all the difference for her. Ms. Benzel, 20, came to Landmark reluctantly — her aunt had heard it advertised on the radio — after graduating from high school in Kennett Square, Pa. There, Ms. Benzel says, she was an unhappy loner whose top goal was keeping her learning disabilities secret.
In addition to taking five classes last semester, she is a tour guide and residential adviser with a gaggle of friends and concrete goals. After graduating in May, she plans to join AmeriCorps and work with inner-city children.
But Ms. Benzel says that as an R.A., she sees another kind of Landmark student — the kind who comes grudgingly, often pushed into it by parents, and never accepts help. “Last week the kid next door to me left,” she says. “He had given up on classes and wasn't in good contact with anyone.”
The Landmark student
It is not supposed to happen that way. Officially, a network of academic advisers who meet weekly with each student, resident deans who live in the dorms, and tutors and counsellors keep a close eye on students who rack up absences, botch assignments or appear socially or emotionally adrift. But in reality, such students are especially likely to resist help and keep their problems under wraps. The typical Landmark student is 19 and male — only about 30 per cent are women, who are less likely to have diagnoses of learning disabilities, partly because of genetic and neurological differences and partly because girls are more likely to keep disabilities hidden. But there is no typical path for the roughly 100 students a year who graduate. Some, like Ms. Benzel, reject the idea of continuing school, at least in the near term.
Of those who received associate degrees and transferred to four-year institutions over the last five years, about a third dropped out, according to data gathered by Landmark. The rest have either graduated or are still working toward bachelor's degrees.
Sarah Tarbell-Littman of Bronxville, N.Y., had floundered for a semester at Mount Holyoke College, spent five semesters at Landmark and now attends Clark University, taking three courses each semester instead of four so as not to fall behind.
“She knows what she needs now and can ask for it,” says her mother, Diane Tarbell. “Sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn't, but that's a big first step.”
( Abby Goodnough is Boston bureau chief of The Times.)— © New York Times News Service
