Pennsylvania university makes plans for center to assist college students with Asperger's

From the Journal Register News Service:

A center that would help college-age students with Asperger's syndrome, an autism-spectrum disorder, succeed in higher education might be built on land recently acquired by Eastern University.

The $10 million deal between Valley Forge Military Academy and College and Eastern bought the school a 19.4-acre parcel in North Wayne to add to its 92-acre main campus less than one mile away.

David Black, president of Eastern University, said the dream of creating a center to help people with the performance-based learning disability transition from high school to college is still evolving.

Black said he has had an interest in what he says is an increasing number of students who are very bright but fail in school because of differences in learning modalities and social skills. The idea for the program would be to "fully expose these students to the college-campus life system but would provide them supports they need to negotiate the social sides of college life," said Thomas Needham, headmaster of Hill Top Preparatory School in Rosemont, which educates students diagnosed with learning differences.

People with Asperger's tend to be very bright and while they may not struggle with learning content, they may be challenged in "organizing themselves, time and thoughts so they can produce products to show they understand the material," he said.

Hill Top's possible role in the program is still being discussed, Needham said.

Needham has been involved with the idea for more than a year and said neither he nor Black could find any other programs at the college level that would do what they hope to do.

Black said it's "an idea whose time certainly has come."

Before it materializes, Black said, students on Eastern's campus have long gone without some needs and they may take priority, depending on funding.

According to a proposed campus master plan, the school may add a new student center, dining hall and recital hall, and additions to its current gym and science center.

Black said that the school's "lingering, deeper priorities" are to its students in science, music and dance, and to the main-campus student population as a whole.

The recently purchased parcel is bordered by Eagle Road where Eastern's main campus is located, Radnor Street Road and Walnut Avenue in the section of North Wayne where residences and institutions, including Cabrini College, mix.

The land, called the south campus by Valley Forge, is now used for parking and for some faculty and staff housing. The fate over the 14 split-level houses there is unknown, Black said.

The land deal has acted as a catalyst for some neighbors to express concern over the possibility of growth by Eastern and the overall student population of it along with Valley Forge and Cabrini.

Neighbor Colleen Price said at Radnor's Planning Commission meeting Monday that the three schools have formed a sort of "incestuous circle" and that "more students mean more cars."

She said the township could ask the colleges "for a little self-restraint."

In addition to the land sale, Valley Forge Academy has agreed to a 10-year lease of its apartments on Radnor Street Road and property near its baseball field on which Eastern will create a softball field. Valley Forge is also allowing use of its tennis courts.

"In spite of the rumors, we're no bigger than we were four years ago, but ... we need a real student center. We'd like to build it on the (current) softball field," Black said. "We have no chapel ... no fitness center. We want to build those."

According to Radnor Township officials, those desires were not known until very recently, and Eastern is not required to tell them its plans. When schools come in for land-development applications they are required to submit long-range plans, but that is the only time they are required.

Eastern was last in land development in 2006 for a new building.

"My concern is to have as much information as possible by means of open dialogue with the two schools, what over several months we have not had," said Hank Mahoney, Radnor commissioner for the area.

"I just wouldn't want to see a rift between the institutions and neighbors because we have to co-exist, and hopefully co-exist harmoniously," he said.

In 2007, Eastern purchased a 1.6-acre residential site next to its campus for administrative use.

Also that year the school added a dorm, classroom building and parking lot to its campus, actions that caused a stir with some neighbors and township officials over fears of increasing capacity.

"We also have very good neighbors who have watched us grow and asked us not to fill their neighborhood with cars and students, and we want to honor that request," Black said.

"Whatever we do (on the new property) there needs to be distinction enough ... so students aren't parading back and forth."

Black said that a shuttle would be the transportation between the main campus and the new parcel, which is less than one mile away and would be walkable. He also said that the softball team would also be shuttled to the new field less than two miles away.

Black maintains that many details of the center and its building project have not been determined. He did say that there could be as many as 100 people (students and resident advisers) living on the site beginning in its second year.