Announcement:

The Fall Deans' Symposiium was held September 25, 2008, in the Community Room in Walker Hall at the University of the Ozarks in Clarksville, Arkansas. About 41 indicated they were coming and we had a great symposium.

The Arkansas Department of Education, after receiving a grant from the Governor's Developmental Disabilities Council (DDC), began hosting a series of Deans' Symposiums in 1994. The Dean's symposia were originally conceived as a communicative tool for college/public school administrators of education in the state of Arkansas and a means for exchanging communication with key state department officials and public school administrators on various topics with a concentrated effort on inclusion for children with developmental disabilities. The stated purposes were:

• Formation of a dean's network, based on the philosophy of inclusion, which would serve to continue a collaborative vision of education for all students and educational settings, and
• Changes in the program/curricula of the Institutions of Higher Education (IHEs) that produce teachers and related services professionals who share a collaborative vision of education for all students. This vision serves to increase the independence, productivity, and integration into the community of people with disabilities.

These purposes have continued to drive the Symposium now for a decade and a half. Deans' Symposiums are held typically twice per year and are held at various university campuses around the state. From 1994 to 2008, the format for these meetings gradually became more flexible. Faculties from schools of education were increasingly sent to the Deans' Symposia instead of attendance being made by deans only. Meetings in recent memory have included vice presidents for academic affairs and provosts. The Deans' Symposia have provided a forum by which the three constituencies could safely divulge weaknesses and shortcomings, compare notes about professional challenges that each face, and arrive at simultaneous solutions to problems.