University of Arkansas Rehabilitation Program Garners Funds to Support Students

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – The nationally ranked rehabilitation counseling program at the University of Arkansas will once again be able to fund graduate students’ education through a traineeship award from the Rehabilitation Services Administration of the U.S. Department of Education.

Some graduate students who are beneficiaries say the traineeships made the difference in whether they could pursue careers in rehabilitation.

“It’s very simple: It meant everything,” said Amanda Connell, when she summed up her experience in the traineeship program. “Without the grant, I would never have attempted this program.”

The Rehabilitation Services Administration awarded a long-term training grant to the rehabilitation program in the department of rehabilitation, human resources and communication disorders in the College of Education and Health Professions that will enable five University of Arkansas students per year to receive 12 months of support for their studies in the Master of Science program in rehabilitation.

The rehabilitation program was ranked No. 15 in the 2009 edition of U.S. News & World Report’s “America’s Best Graduate Schools.”

This past summer, Richard T. Roessler, University Professor of rehabilitation education and research, received word of the new, five-year award to the rehabilitation program that will amount to $495,629 – $95,629 the first year and $100,000 for each of the following four years. Each traineeship provides a beginning master’s student with support for tuition and fees and a monthly stipend of $450 for 12 months.

Roessler indicated that this is the second five-year grant that the rehabilitation program has received to prepare job development and placement specialists. The program has succeeded in other Rehabilitation Services Administration competitions to bring student support to the university. Last year, the program received a grant of $150,000 per year for five years, also from the Rehabilitation Services Administration. It overlapped with another grant awarded in 2004 to Brent Williams, associate professor and program coordinator. The first grant expired this year.

Two students who received traineeships from a previous award recently talked about what the funding meant to them. Both are completing the internship phase of their master’s programs.

Connell works as an intern in the Arkansas Rehabilitation Services field office in Fort Smith.

“The grant enabled me to go to classes and buy books without worrying about what these expenditures normally meant to my bottom line and instead concentrate on my studies,” she said. “The grant, in allowing me to attend graduate school, introduced me to a whole cadre of professionals in many different areas of vocational rehabilitation. I am fortunate to know these people.

“The program with its focus on vocational rehabilitation was tailor-made for me,” Connell continued. “I have developed a passion that I was unaware of until I began this program, and that passion is going to help me to be a better counselor to the individuals I serve.”

Melissa Jones-Moss works as an intern at the Hot Springs Rehabilitation Center, a division of Arkansas Rehabilitation Services.

“The traineeship allowed me an opportunity that I had not considered possible,” she said.

Jones-Moss explained that the first time she thought about pursuing a master’s degree was after Roessler spoke to her class at Arkansas Tech University about the traineeship. She was a senior then.

“The thought of a master’s degree had not even crossed my mind before because of all the expense of college,” she said. “I am a first-generation college graduate and had to depend solely on financial aid during my entire college experience. Without the traineeship, it would not have been possible to earn an advanced degree.”

Long-term training grants address both the high unemployment rate of people with disabilities and the shortage of rehabilitation counselors and placement specialists. The U.S. Department of Labor identified rehabilitation counseling as a field projected to grow faster than the average, and research indicates that job development and placement specialists are in short supply. 

The traineeships have enabled many new students to enter the field of rehabilitation. In addition, local human service agencies work with the rehabilitation program to enable their employees to pursue advanced degrees. Graduates are serving in positions of responsibility throughout Arkansas and the nation as counselors and administrators in public and private rehabilitation settings, colleges and universities, and Veterans Affairs programs.