For young people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDDs), support structures often fall off after high school. With limited post-secondary options, many are challenged with a lack of opportunities and careers. They can end up in low-paying jobs that don’t necessarily match their dreams for their lives. As a result, people with IDDs end up on the margins. 

Programs like Duquesne University’s new Compass Inclusive Post-Secondary Education Program aim to fully integrate this community into college life and open up opportunities for the future. Nationally 338 programs offer people with IDDs post-secondary collegiate options, and only a small percentage of them are at Catholic universities. 

To the program’s co-administrators Dr. Alia Pustorino-Clevenger, program director, and Dr. Meghan Blaskowitz, associate professor of occupational therapy and director of clinical research and evaluation, Duquesne is the perfect place for this program. 

“With the Duquesne mission and the Spiritan mission, it’s a no-brainer to think about how to close disparity gaps for this population and how to walk with people with IDD,” said Blaskowitz. 

The Compass Program, which welcomed its first official cohort for the Fall 2024 semester, allows students with IDDs to be a part of every aspect of college life. 

“Being very Spiritan-focused, the program needed to be fully inclusive. When we say inclusive, we mean that there is no level of non-integration into our campus community. So the students in Compass are enrolled in courses with peers who are pursuing degrees. They’re in clubs and organizations. They’re participating in campus milestones and rites of passage just like their peers,” said Pustorino-Clevenger. 

It’s an approach that is truly transformative both from an academic and social perspective.

This program has been in development for many years, and a pilot program started in 2019 welcoming several students into the program over the next 5 years. This allowed the campus community to see how the program would work. 

When students are admitted to the program, they meet with the Compass team ahead of orientation to talk through what they want out of their experience. Students lead the discussion of their own strengths, accommodation needs and goals. The process helps them start to choose a direction for their studies and the classes they’re interested in out of the standard course catalog. Once a course is chosen, the Compass team and student meets with the faculty member who teaches the course to discuss accommodations that may need to be made. 

“We’ve had a really easy time navigating with faculty and staff. Every faculty member that we’ve approached has been really open to making adaptations and using universal design for learning in their class to try to enhance their own teaching, and I think it helps all the students in the class,” said Blaskowitz.

Compass students are then paired with peer mentors. Nearly 50 students have acted as peer mentors in the pilot program so far. The team looks for similar interests and schedules when pairing up mentors and students, so they can form real bonds. Peer mentors become the “boots on the ground of the program,” helping with problem-solving and studying, but also helping the Compass students embrace social options on campus like clubs and activities. Pustorino-Clevenger and Blaskowitz say they’ve already seen the high reciprocal outcomes for both mentors and mentees. 

“They [peer leaders] are some of the biggest cheerleaders for the students in the program, especially if the students haven’t had the confidence to try something,” said Pustorino-Clevenger

“..With our individual students, I think that’s where I’ve been most touched by the whole program is seeing the lifelong friendships and all the students’ openness and willingness to be inclusive,” said Blakowitz.

Peer mentors come from a variety of programs. Some already have goals for working in a similar field alongside people with IDDs, but others have been guided to consider inclusion in their future careers where they hadn’t before. For example, one peer mentor was a dental student who is now aiming to provide inclusive dentistry to make the experience better for people with IDDs. Another museum studies student developed an interest in creating exhibits with inclusion and accessibility in mind for her future career.

“People with disabilities are in all spaces, right? So [peer mentors] are going to interface with a coworker or people in the community that have disabilities... It’s been cool because [peer mentorship] is almost preparing them how to be more inclusive to have a more inclusive mindset no matter what career path they’re going in,” said Blakowitz.

Compass students take on four years of college experience complete with all the standard rights of passage, friendships, studies, and internships. At the end of it all, they get to walk at graduation to get their certificate, cheered on by the new community they’ve gained.

“You know when you think back to [Duquesne]; it was a tiny school above a bakery in the Hill District to ensure that the children of immigrants had access to education. Really, if you move that mission up into the 21st century, this is ensuring that one of our most vulnerable populations in Pittsburgh, persons with IDD, have that access. And no, we’re no longer over a bakery in the Hill District, but really, we’re ensuring that that same level of thoughtfulness of inclusion, just in a slightly different way,” said Pustorino-Clevenger.

To truly understand the impact this program is already having from the experience of the pilot members, you can read about two of the recent graduates of the program. 

Colton Vazquez
Colton leaned into theater right away when he entered the program (coming from another similar program). He took a lot of acting courses and joined a fraternity. He also did internships with the City Theater. After graduating from the program, Colton has 2 jobs, is a dedicated advocate for others with IDDs and has just recently moved to his own apartment. Colton was also a groomsman at the wedding of one of his peer mentors, illustrating the deep, authentic friendships he developed during his time on campus.    

Ben Guthrie
Ben came into the Compass pilot with an interest in environmental science. As he moved through the program, he also developed an interest in art history. He did internships with the Warhol Museum and the Pittsburgh Botanical Garden, where he ended up working with a landscape architect he studied in class. His involvement with the Frick Environment Center’s Garden of the 5 Senses and his subsequent write-up earned him one of the highest recognitions at Duquesne’s Undergrad Research Symposium. He earned the Office of Disability Services Outstanding Undergraduate Research Award.

More from One Heart, One Spirit