SUNY Empire State College Designated as an Autism-Supportive College
SUNY Empire State College, located in several cities across New York, has recently made groundbreaking history. They have been named an Autism Supportive College by Anderson Center for Autism. Anderson Center for Autism is an institution in New York that specializes in ensuring that individuals with autism have high-quality and accessible education.
SUNY Empire felt the need to create a safe space for students with autism when research yielded the fact that at least 2% of students were neurodivergent. That led to the creation of SUNY Empire’s Center for Autism Advocacy in 2020, which aimed to normalize dialogue regarding autism on campus and provide students with resources to receive help. However, SUNY Empire did not want to stop its initiative there. They desired to make the entire university a safe space for students, and thus invested a total of $30,000 over two years to become an official Autism Supportive College.
As seen in an article by The Saratogian, Anderson Center for Autism awarded SUNY Empire with this title after training the faculty and staff thoroughly on Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and reviewing their current programs available for students with ASD. They specifically had a set of criteria that SUNY Empire was held to, including creating a plan to educate staff and faculty on ASD and supports that may help individuals, ensuring that the practices and procedures taking place in the university promoted the inclusion of all students, and creating a sustainability plan so that these support systems can continuously be tailored to the needs and thoughts of the students.
This is a greatly admirable feat because it was coined the “first of its kind” by SUNY Empire State College. The president of SUNY Empire State voiced her contentment with the success of the program as she said, “I am so proud that SUNY Empire has made support of Autistic students a priority, and that the work to become an Autism Supportive College has been undertaken with such integrity, compassion, and focus.”