CITIZEN JOURNALISM: Disabled woman gets college dream

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By Liz Essley THE WASHINGTON TIMES

CITIZEN JOURNALISM

The speaker's fingers twined nervously through her curly brown ponytail as 150 people listened. "I have always had dreams, since I was a little girl. ... I dreamed about going to college like my twin sisters."

The dreamer, 23-year-old Melissa Gurman, was diagnosed with information processing delays when she was just 17 months old, and later with attention deficit hyperactive disorder and performance anxiety. She is considered intellectually disabled.

But in May, she graduated from George Mason University's Mason Learning Into Future Environments (LIFE) program. Four years at the college have given her a long list of achievements, including mastering her fear of public speaking.

"I have accomplished my college dream," she told friends, family and teachers at a senior recognition banquet.

This year, five students graduated from the LIFE program, which provides postsecondary education and job training for students with intellectual disabilities, whose IQs are usually 70 or below. Designed to help participants transition to independent living, the program accepts students with all types of intellectual disabilities, at varying levels of aptitude.

"At the very least, depending on where they enter, if we bring [them] up to reading signs or directions, we've really given that student a new lease on life," said Heidi Graff, director of the program.

Mason LIFE focuses on basic literacy and math and offers courses on theater, horticulture and current events. Students also learn life skills, such as stove-top cooking and riding the Metro. And they can choose to live on campus in dormitories - another of Miss Gurman's dreams.

Her mother, Jean Gurman, said her daughter didn't even want to come home in the first two weeks.

"You took to it like a fish to water," she told her daughter. "I was the one who was lonesome, to be honest with you."