Sunday, Feb. 23  | 1-5:15 p.m.
Hyatt Regency Savannah, 2 W. Bay St., Savannah, GA 31401

The ARRPE is excited to offers a preconference workshop on the afternoon of February 23, 2025, in Savannah, Georgia. The workshop will provide in-depth discussions of three topics: grant writing in rehabilitation research; ethics education; and serving transition-age youths.

CONCURRENT SESSION  |  1-3 p.m.

Session 1: Survey Says: These are the Top-rated Ethical Issues to Discuss with Your Students for 2025  |  Location: Verelst
Xiaolei Tang, Ph.D., CRC, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Stuart Rumrill, Ph.D., LPC, CRC, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

During this session, presenters will:

• Provide a brief background on ethics in rehabilitation counseling
• Identify a few ethical topics that we believe are emerging or changing
• Provide the results of an open-ended survey completed by rehabilitation professionals who were asked to provide what they believe are currently the most salient and emerging ethical issues that students in rehabilitation counseling programs need to understand.
• Focus on several specific issues reported in the survey and define, describe, and discuss them in detail along with their current implications
• Provide classroom strategies and examples on how to present and discuss these issues with students

Session 2: Developing Your Transition Engineered Collaborative (TEC) Ecosystem to Support People with Disabilities Pursuing STEM Careers  |  Location: Regency Ballroom ABC
Cassandra (Cass) McCall, Ph.D., Utah State University
Henry Cohn-Geltner, M.S., CRC
Kathleen (Kat) Marie Oertle, Ph.D., CRC, LVRC-Utah, Utah State University

The purpose of this workshop is to initiate and facilitate conversations that bridge the disciplinary knowledge, efforts, and resources of special education, rehabilitation counseling, and STEM education by introducing the Transition Engineered Collaborative (TEC). TEC is an interdisciplinary educational ecosystem that leverages the Collaborate for Change (C2) framework. Considered together, C2 can be operationalized with TEC to reposition the overlapping issues identified within the special education, vocational rehabilitation, and STEM disciplines as opportunities to foster the pursuit of STEM careers among youth and students with disabilities.

During this session, presenters will:

• Guide participants to connect with each other, address assumptions, and share information about ethical responsibilities for improving the quality of transition services through interdisciplinary collaboration
• Help participants apply these concepts to their personal, professional, and institutional contexts, critically examining assumptions about STEM fields.
• Facilitate a deeper understanding of the diverse career pathways and essential skillsets in STEM, and help identify key individuals and institutions as collaborative partners
• Ensure participants leave with an actionable plan to initiate TEC in their own contexts, fostering interdisciplinary collaboration and better support for youth and students with disabilities in STEM and beyond.
   

FEATURE SESSION  |  3:10-5:15 p.m.  |  Location: Regency Ballroom ABC

There Is a Place for You in the Rehabilitation Research Industry: Strategies for Identifying Funding Opportunities and Writing Winning Grant Proposals
Timothy Tansey, Ph.D., CRC, University of Wisconsin – Madison
Phillip Rumrill, Ph.D., CRC, University of Kentucky

During this session, presenters will:

• Examine current topics in the lives of people with disabilities and rehabilitation professionals that are fertile ground for extramurally funded research, demonstration, and training projects
• Describe Federal agencies and other organizations that sponsor funded projects in the areas of inclusion and rehabilitation
• Suggest section-by-section tips and strategies for writing competitive inclusion and rehabilitation grants