Ben Ellis and Jacob Elie are fourth-year Vanderbilt University students. They’re both set to graduate spring 2023, and both are unsure what they’ll do once that happens. They meet weekly on campus to study, Elie — a student mentor — as a part of his class on human development and Ellis as a part of Vanderbilt’s Next Steps program.
In 2010, Vanderbilt became the first university in the state and among the first in the country to create a higher-education program for students with intellectual or developmental disabilities with Next Steps. Lipscomb University created its own program in 2014 called Lipscomb IDEAL, and this fall, Tennessee State University began its pilot year for a similar program called Tiger Edge.
