The University of Illinois at Chicago's College of Applied Health Sciences has received a five-year grant totaling $1.375 million from the U.S. Department of Education Rehabilitative Services to fund the College Connection to Career Development Opportunities for Minority Young Adults with Disabilities Project. A breakfast ceremony will launch the College Connection Project.

The project, whose goal is to empower minority young adults with disabilities through education and training beyond the secondary level, began last October and is a collaboration between UIC and the Chicago Public School System, the City Colleges of Chicago and the Illinois Department of Human Services - Office of Rehabilitation Services.

UIC Chicago Illini Union, 828 S. Wolcott Ave., Chicago Room A

Oct. 23, 8:30 a.m.

Representatives from UIC, CPS, the City Colleges and the Illinois Department of Human Services will attend the ceremony, as well as officials from the Mayor's Office for People with Disabilities. Tamar Heller, interim head of UIC's department of disability and human development; Christopher B. Keys, chairman of the UIC department of psychology; Fabricio Balcazar, associate professor in the UIC department of disability and human development; and Teresa Garate-Serafini, project director, will highlight progress to date as well as key goals of the project. Other faculty will participate including Stanley Fish, dean, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

This project has proved to be invaluable for a growing number of disabled minority students in Chicago. Attending the breakfast will be program "alumni" like Mia Coulter, a 22 year old born with spina bifida, a spinal malformation that has confined her to a wheelchair most of her life.

Coulter, with the help of the Advocacy and Empowerment for Minorities with Disabilities Program (a part of the College Connection Project) works at the Access Living Center, lives in her own apartment in Chicago's South Loop and is fully independent. She and others who have achieved a higher quality of life through this program will be available for interviews.