LISA MITCHELL is just your basic University of Manitoba student -- listening intently to the prof., doing her assignments, hitting the books just like the other 27,517 students.

Mitchell is also the first student with Down syndrome to enrol at U of M.

"I have lots of dreams I want to do," Mitchell said this week.

Mitchell is one of four "intellectually disabled" students enrolled in Campus Life, a program that kicked off last January under the direction of Lynne Cantor, who is doing her PhD in inclusive special education.

Students audit the course lectures, then do modified assignments and tests with the help of Cantor's two teaching assistants and volunteers from the students' classes, Cantor explained.

The program is an extension of the inclusive education system that has brought the vast majority of Manitoba's special education students into regular kindergarten-to-Grade 12 classrooms.

"I love to learn -- it's a good opportunity for us to go to Campus Life," said student Patrick Cloutier, who took a course in the environment last winter with Prof. Michael Shaw and who is now in Prof. Joanie Halas's recreation studies course.

"I'd like to be an assistant coach with children, maybe one day if it works out. Maybe soccer. I play soccer with the Wolverines in the Special Olympics," said Cloutier, a grad of Fort Richmond Collegiate.

Mitchell, who graduated from Vincent Massey Collegiate, took family studies last year and is in a theatre course this fall. She has 11 years' experience as an usher at Rainbow Stage and is an usher at the production of Beauty and the Beast at the Pantages.

Theatre "is really interesting to participate in. It's very active -- I'm doing a monologue for the class," Mitchell said. "I'm taking singing, musical theatre."

In family studies, "we were talking about relationships. That's also very interesting," said Mitchell.

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Several sources, including Webster's on-line dictionary, describe Down syndrome as a genetic defect which produces mild to severe developmental delay, along with distinctive physical characteristics.

Glenlawn Collegiate grad Danny Malcolmson is learning how to play the trumpet. "I'm also at Special Olympics," he pointed out.

"I'm a new student. I came here, my mom said to take science and music," said Malcolmson, who's also in an introductory biology course.

Kimberly Cullen is the fourth student in the program.

"There are a lot of students in their programs who have offered to help out," Cantor said.

She has a variety of grants to get the program going, including support from the Winnipeg Foundation, but would like long-term funding so Campus Life can add four new students each year, and work toward a total enrolment of 16 students, each studying for four years. Cantor hopes the current students will eventually take part in convocation ceremonies.

The students do not receive credit hours for the courses they audit, but Cantor hopes they will have some form of certificate or diploma when they complete their studies.

The idea started at University of Alberta in 1987, and at least five Canadian universities have some variation on Campus Life, Cantor said. "All the students are in regular courses with everyone else."

She credited education professors Rick Freeze and Zana Lutfiyya with helping get Campus Life going.

"They all have different interests," Cantor said. The students choose their courses, she said, adding, "I found out who the best professors would be to work with the students.

"It's important they'll feel they learn," said Cantor.

nick.martin@freepress.mb.ca

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