Crimson Is... Hope

We don’t just talk about potential at The University of Alabama. We help our students – and members of the community – reach it.

For example, for the last 30 years, UA’s RISE program has helped prepare more than 5,000 children with disabilities for regular public school classes. The free program is designed to increase development in children, ages six weeks to five years, with disabilities and prepare them for their next classrooms, regular or special education.

The RISE program looks like any other early childhood center, but with additional provisions that address the children's specific disabilities. Speech, physical, occupational and music therapists come to the center, so the children have all their interventions in the same place. Even students without disabilities attend RISE, creating a true mainstream environment in the program. For the past five years, 100 percent of RISE graduates have been placed in kindergarten classrooms with their non-disabled peers.

In addition, RISE has served as a practicum and internship site for more than 800 students from UA, other colleges and universities, and high schools.

Over the years, the RISE program has saved more than $46 million in public funds. The nationally acclaimed program serves as a model for the development of similar programs across the country.