State of the art leadership awards
- The George Jesien National Leadership Award: One who reflects significant work either at the federal level or across state lines, in terms of advocacy, assistance and/or research
- Institute of Higher Education Leadership Award: Administrator, program director, faculty or staff member within an institution of higher education who epitomizes leadership in the PSE field
- Laura Lee Leadership Award: A trailblazing self-advocate who currently attends or has graduated from a PSE program for persons with intellectual disability and whose advocacy significantly benefits individuals with disabilities.
2021 award recipients
(Examples of Cate's leadership, from nomination form):
1) Cate has been working to improve the lives of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities for as long as she’s been working! Cate has been the Project Director at Think College since 2010 and during that time, she has worked with thousands of family members, educators, and advocates, guiding them on the path to higher education. Through the TPSID NCC, Cate has had an important role in the work to develop Model Accreditation Standards, and she led recent work to update the Think College Standards, Quality Indicators, and Benchmarks. She has provided technical assistance that has provided essential guidance to the field.
2) The Think College National Coordinating Center uses a helpdesk system to track requests for help and other questions. Cate is really the mastermind behind this service, and she has replied to thousands of requests for help over the last few years. The comments that were left by people she assisted say that she is helpful, knowledgeable, responsive, kind, and supportive. Cate takes the time to understand each person’s
question and uses her wealth of knowledge and connections to find the answer. She guides people gently to stay on the path to true inclusion. She knows that the range of people who contact Think College, including parents, transition professionals, and higher education representatives, are operating with limited resources, and Cate always goes above and beyond to make sure everyone is connected with the right resources and a network of people who can help. One person commented, “I wish every place had immediate feedback and expert advice. Cathryn is perfect!”
3) Cate has also been instrumental in developing and maintaining the Think Programs Directory, a listing of all postsecondary programs for students with intellectual disability in the U.S. From the early days of surveying programs and establishing the database, to the later move to a web platform with enhanced search features, Cate’s vision for the directory has been clear: to provide a service to students and families that enables them
to find the right program for them. Cate supervises a small team of people who ensure that the directory is updated each year, and she is constantly adding new programs as she finds them. In 2017, she wrote a guide for families “Conducting a College Search: Questions to Ask College Programs,” putting into writing some of the advice that she has shared with countless families over the years.
1) Cate has been working to improve the lives of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities for as long as she’s been working! Cate has been the Project Director at Think College since 2010 and during that time, she has worked with thousands of family members, educators, and advocates, guiding them on the path to higher education. Through the TPSID NCC, Cate has had an important role in the work to develop Model Accreditation Standards, and she led recent work to update the Think College Standards, Quality Indicators, and Benchmarks. She has provided technical assistance that has provided essential guidance to the field.
2) The Think College National Coordinating Center uses a helpdesk system to track requests for help and other questions. Cate is really the mastermind behind this service, and she has replied to thousands of requests for help over the last few years. The comments that were left by people she assisted say that she is helpful, knowledgeable, responsive, kind, and supportive. Cate takes the time to understand each person’s
question and uses her wealth of knowledge and connections to find the answer. She guides people gently to stay on the path to true inclusion. She knows that the range of people who contact Think College, including parents, transition professionals, and higher education representatives, are operating with limited resources, and Cate always goes above and beyond to make sure everyone is connected with the right resources and a network of people who can help. One person commented, “I wish every place had immediate feedback and expert advice. Cathryn is perfect!”
3) Cate has also been instrumental in developing and maintaining the Think Programs Directory, a listing of all postsecondary programs for students with intellectual disability in the U.S. From the early days of surveying programs and establishing the database, to the later move to a web platform with enhanced search features, Cate’s vision for the directory has been clear: to provide a service to students and families that enables them
to find the right program for them. Cate supervises a small team of people who ensure that the directory is updated each year, and she is constantly adding new programs as she finds them. In 2017, she wrote a guide for families “Conducting a College Search: Questions to Ask College Programs,” putting into writing some of the advice that she has shared with countless families over the years.
(From Liz's nomination letter):
It is with great pleasure that I nominate Elizabeth Getzel for the State of the Art’s Institute of Higher Education Leadership Award. When I think of the past 13 years working with and mentoring under Liz, the first words and phrases that come to my mind that describe her leadership behaviors include:
• passionate about postsecondary education as a pathway to employment;
• all means ALL;
• there isn’t a ‘No,’ but a ‘How do we make it happen;’
• committed to inclusive excellence; and
• mile deep knowledge of evidence-informed postsecondary education (PSE) strategies and supports.
I was fortunate to work with Liz between 2009 and 2016 to co-plan VCU’s Comprehensive Transition Program, ACE-IT in College. And, over the past five years, Liz and I have continued to advocate within VCU and the Commonwealth of Virginia for access to college for youth and young adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). She has and continues to take an active role in the success of every student at VCU participating in ACE-IT in College. Students with IDD and their families feel more welcomed, involved and confident of their success at VCU because of her support. ACE-IT in College staff feel more respected, engaged and assured of the program’s success at VCU because of Liz’s work with internal departments at VCU and external stakeholders across Virginia (and the nation). She is a tireless advocate for PSE for youth and young adults with IDD and the community has become more enriched by her work in this field. Liz truly exemplifies leadership is PSE for youth and young adults with IDD.
It is with great pleasure that I nominate Elizabeth Getzel for the State of the Art’s Institute of Higher Education Leadership Award. When I think of the past 13 years working with and mentoring under Liz, the first words and phrases that come to my mind that describe her leadership behaviors include:
• passionate about postsecondary education as a pathway to employment;
• all means ALL;
• there isn’t a ‘No,’ but a ‘How do we make it happen;’
• committed to inclusive excellence; and
• mile deep knowledge of evidence-informed postsecondary education (PSE) strategies and supports.
I was fortunate to work with Liz between 2009 and 2016 to co-plan VCU’s Comprehensive Transition Program, ACE-IT in College. And, over the past five years, Liz and I have continued to advocate within VCU and the Commonwealth of Virginia for access to college for youth and young adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). She has and continues to take an active role in the success of every student at VCU participating in ACE-IT in College. Students with IDD and their families feel more welcomed, involved and confident of their success at VCU because of her support. ACE-IT in College staff feel more respected, engaged and assured of the program’s success at VCU because of Liz’s work with internal departments at VCU and external stakeholders across Virginia (and the nation). She is a tireless advocate for PSE for youth and young adults with IDD and the community has become more enriched by her work in this field. Liz truly exemplifies leadership is PSE for youth and young adults with IDD.
(Nomination Statement):
We nominate Antonio E. Contreras, a junior in the EXCEL program at Georgia Tech, for the 2021 SOTA Laura Lee Leadership award. Antonio’s advocacy as a college student, a community leader, a soon-to-be published author, and a public speaker has significantly benefited people with disabilities and their families. We first met Antonio when we heard him speak about his journey in going to college at the Cal-TASH conference in Sacramento in March 2020. Cal-TASH is the California chapter of TASH, an international leader in disability advocacy. Antonio spoke authentically about his difficult and emotional journey in attending an inclusive high school, moving 1,500 miles away to go to college, taking a gap year, and moving again more than 2,200 miles away to go to college. Antonio’s story was the topic of an award-winning feature documentary film called
You Can Be BRAVE, which follows his journey from his ID diagnosis at four-and-a-half years old to moving into the dorms at his first college. Unfortunately, the first program he attended wasn’t the right fit, so after successfully completing one year of the two-year program, he
moved back home and took a gap year to regroup. Antonio’s remarkable grit and resilience was apparent when he turned lemons into lemonade
by maximizing his gap year. He took classes at a local community college and worked 50 hours a week at three different jobs - as a congressional intern for Representative Ro Khanna (with job support from Best Buddies), as an associate at the Amazon Fulfillment Center (with job support from the San Francisco ARC), and as a college intern for his church. Antonio also traveled throughout the country giving speeches at disability conferences, disability agency meetings, high school assemblies, university classrooms, and film festivals about his self-determination to reach his goal of going to college. We are so impressed with Antonio’s trailblazing determination that we asked Antonio to be our co-presenter on postsecondary college options each semester to parents and families of students with disabilities in the Mission Valley Special Education Local Plan Area (SELPA). The Mission Valley SELPA is a highly diverse community - racially (81% people of color), culturally (35,000 students speaking over 100+ languages at home), and socioeconomically (42% of students participate in the free and reduced lunch program). As a multi-racial (Latinx
and Asianx American) young man, Antonio represents the Fremont community, leads by example, and inspires students with disabilities and their families to have a vision and set goals to attend college and live independently with appropriate levels of support. Antonio’s background, lived experiences, and accomplishments makes him an ideal candidate for the Laura Lee Leadership award.
We nominate Antonio E. Contreras, a junior in the EXCEL program at Georgia Tech, for the 2021 SOTA Laura Lee Leadership award. Antonio’s advocacy as a college student, a community leader, a soon-to-be published author, and a public speaker has significantly benefited people with disabilities and their families. We first met Antonio when we heard him speak about his journey in going to college at the Cal-TASH conference in Sacramento in March 2020. Cal-TASH is the California chapter of TASH, an international leader in disability advocacy. Antonio spoke authentically about his difficult and emotional journey in attending an inclusive high school, moving 1,500 miles away to go to college, taking a gap year, and moving again more than 2,200 miles away to go to college. Antonio’s story was the topic of an award-winning feature documentary film called
You Can Be BRAVE, which follows his journey from his ID diagnosis at four-and-a-half years old to moving into the dorms at his first college. Unfortunately, the first program he attended wasn’t the right fit, so after successfully completing one year of the two-year program, he
moved back home and took a gap year to regroup. Antonio’s remarkable grit and resilience was apparent when he turned lemons into lemonade
by maximizing his gap year. He took classes at a local community college and worked 50 hours a week at three different jobs - as a congressional intern for Representative Ro Khanna (with job support from Best Buddies), as an associate at the Amazon Fulfillment Center (with job support from the San Francisco ARC), and as a college intern for his church. Antonio also traveled throughout the country giving speeches at disability conferences, disability agency meetings, high school assemblies, university classrooms, and film festivals about his self-determination to reach his goal of going to college. We are so impressed with Antonio’s trailblazing determination that we asked Antonio to be our co-presenter on postsecondary college options each semester to parents and families of students with disabilities in the Mission Valley Special Education Local Plan Area (SELPA). The Mission Valley SELPA is a highly diverse community - racially (81% people of color), culturally (35,000 students speaking over 100+ languages at home), and socioeconomically (42% of students participate in the free and reduced lunch program). As a multi-racial (Latinx
and Asianx American) young man, Antonio represents the Fremont community, leads by example, and inspires students with disabilities and their families to have a vision and set goals to attend college and live independently with appropriate levels of support. Antonio’s background, lived experiences, and accomplishments makes him an ideal candidate for the Laura Lee Leadership award.
(Examples of Nick's leadership, from nomination form):
Nick Harmon paved the way for college inclusion in the state of Colorado. In 2010, 6 years prior to the passage of SB 16-196 (the bill that kicked off college inclusion in Colorado), Nick Harmon began attending classes at UCCS. This was before there was a post-secondary program and before there were supports. He was determined to teach UCCS what inclusion means by example. Nick was successful in his endeavors and created a welcoming path for others to follow him once the Office of Inclusive Services was established in 2016. Nick was featured in the Denver Post when UCCS welcomed more students to campus.
2) Nick Harmon began working at UCCS as a co-teacher in college courses before the post secondary program. This allowed students to see people with intellectual disabilities in a leadership role. In Nick’s work as a co-teacher he shared about his personal experience with Down
syndrome, taught students strategies to put to use in the classroom, and gave students insight on how to successfully collaborate with disabled students and their families. Nick’s work has greatly increased the impact that people with disabilities have on our students in the College of Education.
3) Nick Harmon was a leader in having UCCS change their policy that did not allow students who earn a certificate to graduate. With the support of his fellow students, UCCS changed their policy and now students who earn a certificate from the OIS can walk at graduation.
Nick Harmon paved the way for college inclusion in the state of Colorado. In 2010, 6 years prior to the passage of SB 16-196 (the bill that kicked off college inclusion in Colorado), Nick Harmon began attending classes at UCCS. This was before there was a post-secondary program and before there were supports. He was determined to teach UCCS what inclusion means by example. Nick was successful in his endeavors and created a welcoming path for others to follow him once the Office of Inclusive Services was established in 2016. Nick was featured in the Denver Post when UCCS welcomed more students to campus.
2) Nick Harmon began working at UCCS as a co-teacher in college courses before the post secondary program. This allowed students to see people with intellectual disabilities in a leadership role. In Nick’s work as a co-teacher he shared about his personal experience with Down
syndrome, taught students strategies to put to use in the classroom, and gave students insight on how to successfully collaborate with disabled students and their families. Nick’s work has greatly increased the impact that people with disabilities have on our students in the College of Education.
3) Nick Harmon was a leader in having UCCS change their policy that did not allow students who earn a certificate to graduate. With the support of his fellow students, UCCS changed their policy and now students who earn a certificate from the OIS can walk at graduation.