SPECIAL EDUCATION

In the Mary Lou Fulton Institute and Graduate School of Education, the Special Education program is designed to support practicing professionals who want to assume teacher leadership roles in P-12, higher education, and community settings. Our focus on inclusive communities and schools offers many opportunities to develop research-based perspectives on policy, practice, and leadership for change. In this program, internationally known faculty have created a program that challenges traditional assumptions about the nature of dis/ability, explores cutting edge interventions designed to prevent disproportionality, improves student learning outcomes for ALL students, and engages communities of practice in supporting difference. Both master’s and PhD programs offer the opportunity to engage in research and inquiry, learn in interdisciplinary ways, and develop deep understandings around the intersections of race, culture, ability, and language through sociocultural and psychological lenses.

By addressing critical education equity issues through research, policy, and school practices, students are immersed in inquiry and research from the beginning of their program. Master’s graduates become lead special educators, work in disability service centers at colleges and universities, provide service and support to adults with disabilities, as well as pursue doctoral work that may lead to becoming a researcher, university faculty member, or educational leader in a number of local, state, regional, national, or international contexts. Our program is tailored to your experiences and histories as well as your life aspirations. We look forward to opening doors and transforming minds.