Overview
Academic Experience
The Mason LIFE (Learning into Future Environments) Program is a supportive academic university experience offering a four year curriculum of study to post-secondary students, 18-23 years of age, with intellectual and developmental disabilities. The program is supported by the Helen A. Kellar Institute for Human disAbilities (KIHd) within the College of Education and Human Development (CEHD) of George Mason University. The college embraces the principles of equity and access to all opportunities in society by increasing student diversity and accommodations for people with disabilities. In addition, the program provides George Mason University students who are majoring in human service studies such as health fitness and therapeutic recreation, education, psychology, assistive technology, and social work, to obtain hands-on training. This experience of learning from, and working with, the Mason LIFE students presents our George Mason students with a chance to develop the necessary skills to work successfully with students with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
Program Details
The Mason LIFE Program is located at the George Mason University Fairfax campus. Classes follow the Mason academic calendar schedule. Students will receive a certificate upon completion of the program. Our instructor/student ratio is 1:4.
The Mason LIFE Program is designed to be a four-year program. Students attend classes from 9:00 am to 3:00 pm, Monday through Friday.
Student Information
Who are Mason LIFE Students?
Since the Mason LIFE program is a non-categorical inclusive model, our current students vary greatly in terms of their abilities and disabilities. Most Mason LIFE students have cognitive challenges such as significant learning disabilities, mild mental retardation, mild autism, Asperger's Syndrome, or TBI. They may experience sensory or mobility impairments as well. Our students behave appropriately for university learning and have the desire to be in a social but academically supported setting.
Mason LIFE students have a great deal of freedom on campus, and our expectation is that they will negotiate transitions between classrooms and buildings, meals, and non-academic activities independently and unsupervised after initial orientation training.
Students typically apply to the Mason LIFE Program because they desire to:
- Take specially designed courses that will help increase reading, writing, math, technology, independent living, and vocational skills
- Learn more about themselves and the world around
- Become part of the social fabric within a university environment
The Mason LIFE Program offers a variety of classes. Below are the classes for the 2009/2010 academic year:
Fall 2009
- Audit
- Banking
- Community Access
- Current Events
- Dorm 101-Residential Living Skills & Adaptations
- Employment Opportunities/Training
- Fitness & Water Aerobics
- Fitness & Well-Being
- Health Communication
- Horticulture
- Human Growth II
- Independent Living-Stovetop Cooking
- Introduction to Art-Painters & Painting
- Listening
- Literature III-Mystery
- Mathematics & Geometry
- Non-Verbal Communications
- Research I
- Technology-Video Production
- Writing Cartoon and Character Narrations
- Yearbook I
Spring 2010
- Advanced Music: Composers & Appreciation
- Audit
- Community Access
- Constitutional Development
- Dorm 102-Residential Living Skills & Adaptations
- Employment Opportunities/Training
- Fitness & Self-Defense
- Geography
- Independent Living-Home Maintenance
- International Politics
- Mathematics & Personal Finances
- Meteorology
- Multi-Media Analysis III
- Non-Fiction III: History
- Technology-Music Production
- Theatre Arts
- U.S. History
- Writing Journals & Letters
- Yearbook II