NEWS RELEASE

Immediate Release: September 20, 2006Contact: Alicia Steger 516.572.9634e-mail: alicia.steger@ncc.edu

  Nassau Community College "The Achilles Project"

Garden City, NY Beginning in the spring of 2007, twice exceptional (2E) students will be eligible to participate in Nassau Community College's The Achilles Project, a post-secondary educational program created by NCC's 2E Initiative Task Force a College-wide collaborative effort among administrators and faculty.

Similar to Achilles the mythical Greek warrior known for both his great strength as well as his vulnerability Ð twice exceptional individuals show areas of strength and challenge, and profound discrepancies between the two. Their talents could be in a wide range of areas, such as academics, the visual or performing arts, creative writing or athletics. Their deficit areas might be reflected in a variety of special education classifications or medical diagnoses. Typical ones include: LD (Learning Disabilities), OHI (Other Health Impairments), Asperger's Syndrome (high functioning autism), ADD, ADHD, Tourette's Syndrome, OCD, bipolar disorder, and depression. Many 2E students remain unidentified because their strengths and weaknesses mask each other.

The Achilles Project uses a holistic educational approach, addressing students' academic and social-emotional needs, as well as their areas of strength and weakness. Special education accommodations, tutoring and teaming are provided as supports to differentiated instruction in small classes instructionally enhanced for students with different needs. Social skills and support groups/counseling, faculty and peer mentoring, and career-related internships are offered. This program meets three needs, those of the institution, society and the student, through the project's overarching goal of student success in independent functioning, academia/employment and relationships, as well as its immediate goals of development of students' areas of strength, improved academic performance, organizational and study skills, social competence and communications skills, more positive classroom attitudes/behaviors, enhanced self-development and increased sense of affiliation.

For more information about The Achilles Project at Nassau Community College, including eligibility and enrollment requirements, please contact Valerie Lagakis, PhD, Program Coordinator, at 516.572.9687 or vasiliki.lagakis@ncc.edu.

 

Ref: 1012.9/6/06/200