Department of Special Education
The Department of Special Education is a vibrant department of dedicated faculty members with a wealth of educational experiences. Our goal is to prepare exemplary teachers, innovative school leaders and educational researchers.
Today’s classrooms are diverse and are filled with students from a wide range of backgrounds, including different ethnicities, cultures, learning abilities, and socioeconomic levels. The special education department offers programs designed to develop and refine competencies in professional educators to meet the demands of teaching students with a wide range of needs in a variety of school environments, including public, private, urban, and suburban.
Department News
Saint Joseph’s Pathways to Authentic College Experiences (PACE) program, the first of its kind at a Jesuit institution, aims to provide an authentic and inclusive college experience for students with intellectual disabilities.
SJU News caught up with Julie Tibbitt, Ph.D., to learn more about the obstacles she’s had to overcome during the pandemic as a deaf individual herself, her goals as the new program director, and what disability pride means to her.
Classroom experience is essential to the growth and development of students pursuing teaching certification. So when schools moved online as a result of the pandemic, the School of Health Studies and Education leveraged new partnerships and technologies to ensure a smooth transition to the virtual education landscape.
I loved accommodating instruction to meet the needs of all students in the classroom. During my four years at Saint Joseph’s, I had a field placement every semester where I was involved in elementary classrooms and special education settings for various grade levels at different types of schools near campus.”
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Stephanie Crispell '20special education teacher, AIM Academy
