As of June 30, 2005, the LEAP program will no longer be part of ETSU’s Disability Services Department.
The Learning Empowerment for Academic Performance Program, which began in 1996, has lost state funding and is being removed from ETSU’s Disability Services programming.
Assistant Director of Disability Services and LEAP Coordinator Martha Edde-Adams continues to strive for students’ success in the last year of LEAP. “I see the LEAP program as a missing link for students with disabilities,” Adams said. “It’s a really sad day.”
LEAP, a support service for students with disabilities, offers individualized tutoring, academic workshops, personal growth groups, support services and other activities. “We try to encourage outside activities, because some students with mobility, visual, hearing and some learning disabilities are not very good at connecting,” Adams said.
“LEAP offers extracurricular activities like bowling, board game night and swimming, anything to get students more cohesive. Of course, we won’t be doing that anymore.”
To qualify for the LEAP program, students must be enrolled at ETSU, provide documentation of disability to the Department of Disability Services and be enrolled with Vocational Rehabilitation. “The program has been very successful,” Adams said. “Last year, over 60 students involved with the LEAP program graduated, 18 of them were on the Dean’s List.”
Each semester, LEAP is required to make eight student contacts, and they average 16.
Despite the loss of the LEAP program, Disability Services will continue to offer student counseling and faculty/student accommodations. With distance education courses being a part of a student’s life at ETSU, Disability Services is trying to make online courses more student friendly for students with disabilities.
“Disability Services has a family atmosphere,” Adams said. “It is student-oriented and student success is our main goal. We will miss the LEAP program.”
Shannon Skinner, 24, a graduate assistant with LEAP, was a LEAP student as an undergraduate and now tutors for the program. “The LEAP program was essential to my success in my undergraduate degree,” Skinner said. “I am able to my own experience as a student and better help my tutoring students. Students with learning disabilities need tutors who are firm as well as patient and understanding.
“LEAP provides tutors who want to help students with disabilities. Even thought the state wants to do away with LEAP, ETSU should find a way to keep it.

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