Associate Professor April Regester will serve as treasurer on the inaugural board of directors of the Inclusive Postsecondary Education Association. The board plans to officially launch the new organization in October. (Photo by Derik Holtmann)

The University of Missouri–St. Louis has been a leader in inclusive postsecondary education since the founding of the Succeed Program more than a decade ago.

The university and its faculty are continuing to advance the field by playing an instrumental role in the creation of an unprecedented national membership organization for professionals and advocates. April Regester, associate professor of inclusive education and chair of the Department of Educator Preparation and Leadership at UMSL, has worked with peers across the country on the upcoming launch of the Inclusive Postsecondary Education Association.

“It’s exciting,” Regester said. “It keeps my work and my career interesting. I’m continuously learning, and it’s a very exciting movement to be a part of because there’s a lot of opportunities around positive outcomes for students with intellectual disability. We’re talking everything from earning degrees to paid, integrated, competitive employment to self-directed independent living experiences.”

The organization’s purpose is to increase access to quality inclusive postsecondary education for people with intellectual disabilities by building community regionally and nationally, advancing knowledge, supporting advocacy and developing leaders in the field. The IPSE Association will help formalize connections between postsecondary programs in an effort to expand opportunities for individuals with disabilities throughout the nation.

Regester was recently elected to serve as treasurer on the inaugural board of directors, and she is working with colleagues from institutions such as Indiana University Bloomington, Lipscomb University, University of Cincinnati, Syracuse University and University of Massachusetts Boston.

The board plans to officially launch the first-of-its-kind organization in October at the State of the Art Conference on Inclusive Postsecondary Education and Individuals with Intellectual Disability in Syracuse, New York. It’s a fitting stage for the kick-off, as the first steps toward forming the organization began at the 2024 State of the Art Conference in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

“It was gathering the group that we thought could have the best input and perspective,” Regester said. “Once we met in Chapel Hill, really it was identifying what the need was. We have a survey out that programs are completing as far as what they’re looking for – the current gaps in support. That was a big piece, to identify what the gaps were, to make sure we’re aligned with existing supports and structures.”

After the initial in-person meeting, the planning committee continued to meet monthly online to maintain momentum. Based on the survey results, the group found that one of the biggest needs is a more robust sense of community.

“Peer-to-peer connection seems to be a really big gap; not a lot of structure is set up for that level of interaction,” Regester explained. “We are already looking at platforms – one is actually called the CommUnity Platform. It’s oftentimes what’s used for other professional organizations to allow that peer-to-peer connection. Another gap we have identified is regional in-person events.”

The State of the Art Conference, which is hosted by the Taishoff Center at Syracuse University, is the premier national conference for inclusive postsecondary education. However, because of travel expenses, attendance is often limited to program directors and faculty members who may have financial resources. The IPSE Association intends to expand on accessible, local and affordable networking opportunities for support staff. Regester added that the organization also aims to support research in the field and provide venues for individuals to share their work. This will include encouraging submissions to the Journal of Inclusive Postsecondary Education, which was founded in 2019.

Regester is well positioned to help grow the field nationally. She played a significant role in founding the Succeed Program at UMSL in 2013. The postsecondary education program was created to provide opportunities for UMSL students with intellectual and developmental disabilities to develop academic, living and vocational skills as they work toward a two-year Chancellor’s Certificate. Since that time, it’s grown exponentially.

Now, UMSL’s Office of Inclusive Postsecondary Education, housed in the College of Education, has expanded programming for students beyond the certificate track. This includes the implementation of the Succeed+ and Link programs. The former includes an additional year or more of experience and vocational training resulting in industry-recognized credentials, while the latter supports students as they matriculate into undergraduate certificates or bachelor’s degree programs.

Many of those efforts were supported by a 2020 Transition and Postsecondary Programs for Students with Intellectual Disabilities grant from the U.S. Department of Education, which provided $2.1 million in federal funding to augment the program. The TPSID grant also put UMSL in the position to make connections at the national level.

As part of the grant, Regester and her colleagues at UMSL have been collecting data, including tracking newly developed inclusive education programs, for the Think College National Coordinating Center. A separate grant has included work on the development and support of regional alliances. For instance, UMSL faculty and staff members helped the University of Missouri–Columbia launch its Preparing Adults for Work and Society program.

Through that work, it became clear that the field is growing, and a national body was necessary to continue that progress.

“More and more people need that level of support and technical assistance, and we’re seeing the numbers of programs increase,” Regester said. “The National Coordinating Center can only do so much with their funding and capacity. They’re really meant to be a data hub for what’s happening. So, providing the level of camaraderie, best practices and support that we need in the field, which is growing now, a national association made the most sense. It also made the most sense for a structure of regional alliances.”

Ideally, the IPSE Association will foster synergy between established and newly minted programs. Newer programs will learn from established programs like Succeed, but Regester and her colleagues at UMSL will also be pushed by new, innovative ideas from the next generation of inclusive educators.

Regester is excited to play such a hands-on role in advancing the field and the impact it will make in the future.

“It’s really important that we legitimize the field further, to inform policy and also to increase access for people,” Regester said. “We have really good outcomes in these programs. Typically, individuals with intellectual disability have a very low employment rate. Those who attend a higher education institution have much higher employment rates. Those are serious outcomes that have an impact in terms of the lives of people with disabilities. We’re looking to provide a place for people to be able to increase that access, increase best practices, make sure that there’s a forum for sharing research and making sure that we’re providing the best opportunities.”