Author name: Tim

Join us for episode three of MCIE’s “Think Inclusive” four-part series in collaboration with Think College, as Tim Villegas visits the IDEAL program at Georgia State University in downtown Atlanta. IDEAL — Inclusive Digital Expression and Literacy — is a college program for students with intellectual disabilities built around creative media: film, television, and digital arts. It is also a commuter program. There are no dorms and no leafy college town here. Every student crosses one of the most traffic-choked metro areas in the country to get to class, some of them spending three hours a day on buses or paratransit for the privilege. The episode opens in a careers class, where nine students name their dream careers: veterinarian, flight attendant, musician, actor, podcaster, comic book writer.

Join us for episode two of MCIE’s “Think Inclusive” four-part series in collaboration with Think College, as Tim Villegas travels to the University of California, Davis, to visit the Redwood SEED Scholars Program — California’s first four-year residential college program for students with intellectual disabilities, and the first at any UC campus. SEED stands for Supported Education to Elevate Diversity, and the name comes from an unlikely grove of redwood trees growing in the Central Valley heat, holding each other up by their shallow, interlocking roots. It’s a fitting image for a program built on community: scholars live in the dorms, take UC Davis classes across 27 different departments, work paid jobs on campus and in town, and are surrounded by more than 170 paid peer mentors.