College Transition Program

The CTP's services are tailored to meet the specific needs of students with Autism Spectrum Disorder, many of whom also have Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder. The director of the CTP, Tirza Kroeker, collaborates with faculty and staff across campus to provide individual and collaborative services, including:

• Academic support—Students on the spectrum meet two or more times a week with the Director of the CTP to manage their academic tasks—assessing what needs to be done and when, breaking down seemingly overwhelming tasks into doable chunks, identifying and prioritizing tasks and needs, strategizing the best way to prepare for specific courses and develop required papers, working with library databases and reference librarian to support research, planning and completing important communications, and staying on top of assignments and grades.  Students on the spectrum also meet with professional academic professional staff in the Learning Opportunities Center to understand mathematical and business concepts, engage in relevant assignments, and prepare for exams.  Students on the spectrum who will benefit from supplemental courses designed to encourage and support academic success in the Humanities, Natural and Mathematical Sciences, and Social Sciences are invited and encouraged to do so.
• Extended-time testing and class notes—Like students with other neurocognitive disorders, students on the spectrum communicate with staff in the Learning Opportunities Center and their professors to receive extended-time testing services and class notes as needed.  These services are included in accommodations provided by the Americans with Disabilities Act and available to students who submit relevant documentation.
• Access to a quiet and/or supportive study environment—the CTP provides a safe and comfortable environment for students on the spectrum to study and connect with one another in a space located in the Hazel wing of the library.  Many students make study in the area part of a regular routine designed to support active engagement in assignments.  When students do so, they are delighted to find others who share common interests and engage in reciprocal sharing about those interests.  Their interactions with one another are punctuated by humor, invention, dramatic mimicry, and commiseration.  In addition, students benefit from easy access to one-on-one help.
• Communications with parents and members of the faculty, administration, and staff --Long a part of Westminster's student body, students on the spectrum find faculty, staff, and administrators readily accept and help them as they navigate individual challenges.  The director of the CTP provides significant help to students on the spectrum in formulating their own communications and serving as an ongoing resource to students about specific resources available to support them with specific tasks.  Depending on a student’s needs and agreement to do so, the director of the CTP will engage in conversations with the student and his or her parent(s), faculty, or members of the College’s staff. 
• Career planning—students on the spectrum work one-on-one with staff in the Office of Advising and Career Development to assess their strengths, skills, and values as well as areas of concern relative to the selection of majors and minors, internships, and employment. 
• Psychological counseling—students on the spectrum often meet with members of the Wellness Center to address their counseling and health needs.  They are assured complete confidentiality in their interactions with Wellness Center staff. 
• Freshman orientation—the transition from living at home and attending classes at a local high school or community college to living in a residential college environment, attending and participating in classes, preparing and submitting assignments in a timely and consistent manner, and establishing positive interactions with new peers, faculty, and staff is often the most dramatic life transition students on the spectrum, like their “neurotypical” peers, have ever confronted and navigated.  Westminster College offers a first year and transfer experience designed to support this transition that includes an orientation, seminar, leadership class, mentors, and academic advisors.  The director of the CTP provides additional support to students on the spectrum to navigate each aspect of these experiences.
• Physical fitness programming—The director of the CTP collaborates with faculty in the Exercise Science program to identify a faculty mentor, facilitator, and upper-class interns to offer physical fitness programming exclusively designed to support the needs of small groups of students on the spectrum.  
• Social skill development programming—The director of the CTP collaborates with faculty and staff to offer courses and workshops designed to support students in developing social skills with one another.  For example, over the course of the past two years, an English professor facilitated a course for students on the spectrum that actively engaged students as actors in establishing scenes that dramatize problems. Audience members then replaced actors to solve the problems.    In the process, actors and spect-actors dramatized and resolved problems in empowering ways. 

Students who are admitted to and enroll in the College Transition Program pay an additional fee for each semester they are in the program.  Freshmen pay $2,000 per semester and upperclassmen pay $1,500 per semester. 

For more information about the College Transition Program, please contact:

Tirza Kroeker
Director, College Transition Program
Westminster College
500 Westminster Avenue
Fulton, MO  65251
Office phone:  (573) 592-5305
Email: Tirza.Kroeker@westminster-mo.edu