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The new ‘three amigos’ riding into Trump impeachment inquiry

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10 wounded in shooting near French Quarter

<p>DALLAS TWP. &#8212; It started &#8220;by accident,&#8221; was the first of its kind in the state and has survived and thrived for 40 years. Misericordia University&#8217;s Alternative Learners Program has helped hundreds &#8212; probably thousands &#8212; of students overcome disabilities or other problems to earn their degrees and succeed.</p><p>&#8220;A young man popped into my office, his name was Peter,&#8221; teacher education professor emeritus Joseph Rogan recounted of the moment that led to the ALP. &#8220;Peter sounded like a really bright kid, he sounded like he had his act together, but he was flunking out. I asked him why and he said it&#8217;s because he can&#8217;t read.&#8221;</p><p>Being the new guy at the university (then a college, actually) with a background in special education, it made Rogan realize that, while he had spent years helping students deal with learning disabilities in early grades, he &#8220;never really thought about what happens to the learning disabled kids when they grow up.&#8221;</p><p>So he asked Peter what Misericordia could do for him, and the answer was simple if a bit startling coming from a college student back in 1979, 21 years before the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act was signed into law.</p><p>&#8220;He said, well, if somebody could read the test to me, I&#8217;d be fine,&#8221; Rogan said. &#8220;So we did.&#8221;</p><p>It might have ended there, but Peter &#8220;was a bit of braggart,&#8221; and others learned about the extra help. &#8220;It just grew,&#8221; Rogan said, so he sought approval to spend more time on it, then to hire help.</p><p>So, what exactly <em>is</em> the ALP?</p><p>&#8220;You ask what we do on a daily basis, and it&#8217;s never the same answer every single day,&#8221; ALP Coordinator Scott Woolnough said. &#8220;We help with test accommodations, we help with a boyfriend or girlfriend issue, we help with roommate conflict, a parent issue.</p><p>&#8220;We focus on de-stressing the student, especially in those early years. College is very stressful. We become that person they can go to with anything. &#8220;</p><p>The ALP was a stand-alone program for most of its existence but was folded into the Student Success Center that merged several student service programs about 10 years ago. The center helps about 200 students per semester, director Jessica Nelson said, providing legally required support. But about 50 of those are ALP students, getting help &#8220;above and beyond what is required.&#8221;</p><p>&#8220;They come here a week early for a bridge program to transition from high school to college,&#8221; Assistant Director Kristen Ricardo said. &#8220;They&#8217;re given learning strategies, additional skills and techniques.&#8221;</p><p>Most importantly, they are given an ALP coordinator (Scott is one of three) who &#8220;meets with them a minimum of once a week&#8221;</p><p>The service is highly personalized. It could involve time management, or relationship advice, or tutoring. If it&#8217;s a reading issue, &#8220;we may break down the reading into smaller pieces during the one-on-one sessions, or get alternative texts, so they can listen to them.&#8221;</p><p>&#8220;This morning I had a a student come in with a relationship issue,&#8221; Scott said, &#8220;She recently connected back with an ex-girlfriend, and from my experience that girlfriend was not helpful to her academic progress. So we had a long, hard conversation about whether or not to resume that relationship.</p><p>&#8220;I still don&#8217;t know what decision she&#8217;s going to make, but I know I helped make that decision.&#8221;</p><p>Scott offered an example from a few years back when a student who came to Misericordia had a &#8220;0.0&#8221; grade point average his first semester. &#8220;He realized when you make those kind of scores, you don&#8217;t play football anymore.</p><p>&#8220;He threw himself into his studies and to his credit, did everything I asked. He got through it.&#8221;</p><p>Kristen talked of a student who handled the classwork for a medical imaging program easily, but struggled with patient interactions in clinical settings. After multiple efforts failed, she switched gears and majors and graduated, going to work at a different university doing the same sort of learning support the ALP provides.</p><p>All three talked about the sense of accomplishment in helping students overcome problems and earn the same degrees as students who have no learning disabilities, autism spectrum diagnosis or emotional/social problems. And they had plenty of stories of graduates who come back to say thanks, or even to help out new students in the program. But there is a third bonus.</p><p>&#8220;I notice the coordinators get a big haul around Christmas time,&#8221; Jessica said with a laugh. &#8220;Little gifts from those they help arrive: cookies, knickknacks, hand-made art. I have one person who gives me freshly baked bread every year,&#8221; Scott said.</p><p>Rogan said the ALP service was free for years, but a fee has been added since he retired: $2,100 per semester the first two semesters, and $1,840 per semester after that.</p><p>Rogan said most schools have some variation of ALP today, but that is a far cry from his days in grad school. He wanted to do his dissertation on determining whether reading accommodations really made a difference in student outcome. &#8220;When I presented this idea, I had to go through a lot. They just didn&#8217;t think these kids should be in college. They also didn&#8217;t think it was fair to cut some students a break. But we&#8217;re not cutting them a break in the sense of cutting standards.&#8221;</p><p>The idea grew from test accommodations &#8212; giving a student extra time, reading a test to them, letting them take a test in a quiet setting &#8212; to giving them strategies on &#8220;how to take a test, how to take notes.&#8221;</p><p>It was the give-a-fish/teach-<em>to</em>-fish moment. &#8220;Once they have those strategies in their pockets, we reduce the need for the accommodations.&#8221;</p><p>Misericordia&#8217;s ALP has become a template for other schools, he said. &#8220;I&#8217;m very proud Misericordia did it, and I&#8217;m very proud of being the first in the state.&#8221;</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Misericordia University&#8217;s Kristen Ricardo and Jessica Nelson talk the school&#8217;s Aternative Learners Program, which is 40 years old. Nelson is the director and Ricardo the assistnt director of the Student Success Center, which includes ALP </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/web1_TTL112119Learners1.jpg</photo0><caption0>Misericordia University&#8217;s Kristen Ricardo and Jessica Nelson talk the school&#8217;s Aternative Learners Program, which is 40 years old. Nelson is the director and Ricardo the assistnt director of the Student Success Center, which includes ALP </caption0><photoCredit0>Aimee Dilger | Times Leader </photoCredit0></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/web1_TTL112119Learners2.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Scott Woolnough is one of Misericordia Universitys Alternative Learners Program coordinators </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo1>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/web1_TTL112119Learners2.jpg</photo1><caption1>Scott Woolnough is one of Misericordia Universitys Alternative Learners Program coordinators </caption1><photoCredit1>Aimee Dilger | Times Leader </photoCredit1></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/web1_TTL112119Learners3.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Misericordia University students Kaitlyn Furr, a senior studying occupational therapy, and Allison Mattucci a junior speech language pathology student, work together in the Student Success Center which also houses the Alternative Learner&#8217;s Program. About one-quarter of the students using the SSC are in the ALP, though university makes it a point not to have ALP students identified in anyway inside the center. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo2>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/web1_TTL112119Learners3.jpg</photo2><caption2>Misericordia University students Kaitlyn Furr, a senior studying occupational therapy, and Allison Mattucci a junior speech language pathology student, work together in the Student Success Center which also houses the Alternative Learner&#8217;s Program. About one-quarter of the students using the SSC are in the ALP, though university makes it a point not to have ALP students identified in anyway inside the center. </caption2><photoCredit2>Aimee Dilger | Times Leader </photoCredit2></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/web1_TTL112119Learners4.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Misericordia Universitys Kristen Ricardo and Jessica Nelson talk about the school&#8217;ss Aternative Learners Program. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo3>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/web1_TTL112119Learners4.jpg</photo3><caption3>Misericordia Universitys Kristen Ricardo and Jessica Nelson talk about the school&#8217;ss Aternative Learners Program. </caption3><photoCredit3>Aimee Dilger | Times Leader </photoCredit3></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><subheadMeta>Misericordia Alternative Llearning Program turns 40</subheadMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Mark Guydish</p><p>mguydish@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach Mark Guydish at 570-991-6112 or on Twitter @TLMarkGuydish</p></shirttailMeta></div>

A successful accident: Misericordia Alternative Learning Program turns 40