Messiah College joined the Liberated Learning project, an initiative of St. Mary's University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 2003 after Keith Drahn, Director of Disability Services, read about it in an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education. A subsequent demonstration at IBM's research center near Tarrytown, New York confirmed the interest of key faculty and administration in utilizing speech-to-text technology to enhance the learning experience of students with disabilities.

Messiah College's participation is made possible by donors who personally experienced disability-discrimination as students. One donor was so impressed with the potential for deaf/hard-of-hearing students that he borrowed funds for his gift to assure Messiah's participation in Liberated Learning. Ironically, that donor quoted colonial author, Washington Irving at a donor's luncheon, only to learn later that it was near Irving's home and legendary town of Sleepy Hollow where Keith Drahn first saw Liberated Learning in action.

The College has worked actively to develop low-cost processes for electronic conversion of textbooks for students with reading-related disabilities. Other technology-related projects include use of hand-held PCs with students who lack organizational skills, and as portable text-to-speech devices for e-text-books.

Team members include Keith Drahn, Disability Services/Project Director, John Bechtold, Professor of Psychology/Research Coordinator, Ed Arke, Professor of Communications, Bob Kilmer, Professor of Business Information Systems/notes manager, Ryan Mark and Les Weiand, Information Technology Services, and notes-editors Anthony Thomas and Eric Allen.

Read an article about Messiah's first year using Liberated Learning that appeared in the June 2004 issue of The Bridge.

To learn more about how Liberated Learning works, visit the SMU Liberated Learning website.