InclusiveU

Education student, Mary Fitzgerald met weekly with her peer partner who is a student in the Inclusive U program here at Syracuse University. Mary said, “This experience both connected me to the idea of civic engagement and more insight into my future career as an educator. By volunteering, I was able to form a connection with my peer partner and have more experience being around students with disabilities. My goal is to become an inclusive educator; therefore, this opportunity deepened my understanding of the importance of inclusion and what can be gained if students with disabilities are meaningfully included with general education students. My understanding of civic engagement has grown because I now know volunteering can be used to gain experience in aspects of my future career and that it can be lots of fun. Civic engagement is also a way to experience diverse groups of people. In subsequent experiences, I will look for experiences that are fun, expose me to different types of people and can help me become a better future educator.”