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DECEMBER 2005

College Presidents Series:
President Lynda Katz, Landmark College
By Emily Sherwood, Ph.D.

Nestled in the bucolic Vermont town of Putney, home to artists and artisans, where the 250 year old Putney Inn recalls a more gentile way of life unspoiled by fast food chains, Landmark College sits on a tract of land once home to Windham College, which closed its doors in 1978. From Windham’s ashes—or rather, following its takeover by the federal government and subsequent auctioning to a New York developer—Landmark College was borne in 1984, realizing a dream of founder and visionary Dr. Charles Drake, who had dyslexia and wanted to create a learning environment specifically for students with learning disabilities.

Current Landmark President Dr. Lynda Katz, only the third president in Landmark’s 21 year history since she took office in 1994, looks back on the tremendous growth and change she has helped to spawn since arriving in Vermont from Pittsburgh, where she previously held dual appointments at the University of Pittsburgh as Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Education in the School of Medicine and Associate Professor of Health and Rehabilitative Sciences. When Landmark began with 200 students in 1984 (today’s student body is double that size), “we were a boot camp for students with significant learning problems,” says President Katz. “They came as a last resort.” Their sole purpose, she adds, was “to get into a ‘real college’ as soon as possible.” President Katz’ mission, which she deems successful, has been “to make a vibrant, vital place, not a college of last resort. We focus on attracting students from high school as a choice,” Dr. Katz asserts. Indeed, though the college still functions as a “bridge program” for students from other colleges—including Williams, Holyoke, and Duke—who are struggling where they are and need intensive help before returning to receive their B.A. degrees, “we are focusing on attracting students who will stay and get their A.A. degree, so that their next college is one of choice rather than where they happen to get accepted,” asserts President Katz.

Landmark’s approach is fairly simple, considering that it is one of the only accredited colleges in the country designed exclusively for students with dyslexia, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (AD/HD) or other specific learning disabilities.

Students must take a mandatory course in Cognition, Learning, and Self, which teaches them about the brain, ways of learning, study skills, and technology. “Students learn what ADD is, what a learning disability is…and how their condition affects learning,” explains Dr. Katz. Students must come to class with a laptop and learn to use relevant software, such as the Kurzweil  program that converts printed material (which is scanned into a computer) into an audio file, which the student can then listen to and read on screen. While the range of additional courses offered at Landmark mirror those at other colleges, it is the teaching methods that make Landmark unique. “Our classes are exceedingly interactive,” says Dr. Katz. “Our teachers know how to do multi-sensory teaching and use meta-cognitive strategies.” And of course, class sizes are small, rarely over 20.

No one is better qualified to carry out a vision of excellence in this field than Dr. Katz, a nationally recognized expert in learning disabilities and AD/HD in adolescents and adults, who continues to operate her own practice as a psychologist by evaluating students for special education accommodations in the surrounding areas. Moreover, Dr. Katz has authored and co-authored scores of reference articles, book chapters, and other publications in her field, as well as a 2001 book entitled Learning Disabilities in Older Adolescents and Adults: Clinical Utility of the Neuropsychological Perspective.

 Her hope for the future is that society will begin to refocus special education funding on the adolescent population. “We’ve put so much emphasis on early intervention, but by and large, these programs end at third grade,” explains Dr. Katz. “Yet the cognitive demands on reading and comprehension don’t really start till sixth or seventh grade. Adolescents with learning disabilities are struggling because, although they can decode, there’s more to special ed. than decoding. They need to not just learn to read, but read to learn,” she argues passionately.

Often the true mark of success is to be able to share best practices with others in the field, and that is exactly what Landmark has done in its recent acquisition of a $1 million grant from the Department of Education to develop a curriculum that can be used by learning disabled students in community colleges around the country. For Lynda Katz, it’s another step in the long road ahead for the learning disabled community, and —given her remarkable track record—she is the right person to be leading the charge.#

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