About Us
Dr.Susan Vogel
Distinguished Research Professor, Literacy Education Department: Project Director, Enhancing Success for Students with Disabilities in Higher Education; Teaching responsibilities: Graduate courses in learning disabilities and transition to postsecondary education, employment, and independent living, and online course in disabilities and higher education.
- Brief Bio about Dr. Susan Vogel
- Curriculum Vitae for Dr. Susan Vogel (Word File)
- List of Publications by Dr. Susan Vogel (Word File)
Dr. Steven R. Sligar
Dr. Steven R. Sligar served as the qualitative data analyst for the project Enhancing Success for Students with Disabilities at Northern Illinois University. For the last seven years he has worked with a federal project Postsecondary Education Program Network (PEPNet) to enhance services for students who are deaf or hard of hearing.
- Brief Bio about Dr. Steven Sligar
- Curriculum Vitae for Dr. Steven Sligar (Word file)
Brief Bio about Susan Vogel
Dr. Susan Vogel is Distinguished Research Professor at Northern Illinois University where she has been an administrator, teacher, and researcher since 1990. From 2001-2004 she was Project Director of Enhancing Success for Students with Disabilities at Northern Illinois University. This three-year project, funded by the Illinois Board of Higher Education, was designed to enhance academic success of students with disabilities.
Since 1970, Dr.Vogel has been an active contributor to our knowledge regarding learning disabilities. In 1980, she founded and directed a comprehensive program for students with LD at Barat College, a small private college in Illinois. She designed the Enhancing Success Project based on more than 25 years of experience working in research and development of support services and long-term outcomes of adults with learning disabilities (LD) in higher education and beyond.
After 14 years at Barat College, Dr. Vogel moved to Michigan and became chair of the Special Education Department at Eastern Michigan University. In 1990 she moved back to Illinois to assume the chairmanship of the Educational Psychology, Special Education, and Counseling Department at Northern Illinois University (NIU). In the mid-1990's, Dr. Vogel joined forces with NIU colleagues to research changes that had occurred over a ten year period in faculty knowledge and attitude toward students with disabilities. This research led to the Enhancing Success Project that takes a comprehensive, pro-active view of the campus climate (including faculty, administrators, and supportive professional staff) and the factors that contribute to student success.
She has published over 75 articles, six books, and several handbooks on adults with learning disabilities in higher education and beyond. Her Handbook on college students with LD, now in its 7th edition, has sold over 60,000 copies. She is now engaged in a 20-year follow-up study of adults with learning disabilities who received support services at Barat College. Previous studies found many positive outcomes and factors that contributed to success, namely, understanding one's LD, using compensatory strategies, having a close relationship with an LD specialist, counselor, or teacher, and identifying the career path that allowed them to utilize their strengths with minimal reliance on their weaknesses. At the same time, she identified some specific emotional vulnerabilities.
Dr. Vogel has also explored the response of other nations to meeting the needs of students with LD. In 1998, she organized a conference in Israel that brought together speakers from Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States to share information regarding college/university students with LD and beyond. In 2003, York Press published the comprehensive volume edited by Dr. Vogel and colleagues that described what has been happening internationally since that conference.
Dr. Vogel has been involved IN another international research collaboration on outcomes of adults with LD ages 16-65 in nine countries. The findings from this initiative appeared in two issues of Dyslexia: An International Journal of Research and Practice guest edited by Dr. Vogel ,. in which a series of papers described the findings and explored factors that could have contributed to the discrepancy in prevalence of LD and outcomes in these nine countries. For her research contributions over the last 35 years, Dr. Vogel was appointed, in June, 2004, Distinguished Research Professor, the highest honor that can be bestowed on faculty at NIU, in recognition of her contributions to our understanding of adults with LD, how their needs can be better met in higher education, and how we can enhance their chances of success across the life span.
Brief Bio about Steve Sligar
Dr. Steven R. Sligar has served for the past two years as the qualitative data analyst for the project Enhancing Success for Students with Disabilities at Northern Illinois University.
For the last seven years he has worked with a federal project called Postsecondary Education Program Network (PEPNet) designed to enhance services for students who are deaf or hard of hearing. This was through a contract with the Midwest Center for Postsecondary Outreach (MCPO), St. Paul College, St. Paul, MN.
His dissertation, Reconceptualizing the Development and Maintenance off Support Services for College Students Who Are Deaf or Hard of Hearing, was a case study of William R. Harper College. One of the products from this research was a template used by community colleges and universities to develop and maintain support services.
Presently, Dr. Sligar serves as the Vice President of Community Services for the Center for Sight & Hearing in Rockford, IL. He has over 30 years experience in the field of vocational rehabilitation and this includes work as vocational evaluator, administrator of two programs, advocate, and trainer of consumers and professionals in rehabilitation and sign language interpreting. He has 20 publications and is an invited speaker with over 150 refereed presentations in the United States. Recently, he presented on practices of postsecondary institutions in the United States at the international conference, Adult Learning in the New Millenium. Lahti, Finland: University of Helsinki, Palmenia Centre for Research and Continuing Education.
His career started in Cave Spring, GA on the grounds of the school for the deaf. He provided testing and career guidance for the students. After 5 years, he moved to San Antonio, Texas and developed the Southwest Center for the Hearing Impaired into a national program for persons who are low functioning and deaf. In 1988 he relocated and was the first Director of the Georgia Sensory Rehabilitation Center in Atlanta, GA. This was a residential program for persons who are deaf and/or blind, and provided comprehensive vocational and independent living skills training. In 1995 he was a Visiting Research Associate at the Northern Illinois University Research and Training Center on Traditionally Underserved Persons who are Deaf.
He has a Masters in Rehabilitation and Special Education from Auburn University and a Doctorate Adult Education and Human Resource Development from Northern Illinois University.
- The Center for Sight & Hearing
8038 McIntosh Lane Rockford, IL 61107
Phone: 815-332-6800
Fax: 815-332-6810
TTY: 815-332-6800
Email: ssligar@rockfordcenter.org
Last revised on 05/05/2005
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