Increasing Access for Students with Disabilities From: Chronicle of Higher Education - 11/28/2003 Congress is considering legislation to expand programs that increase access for students with disabilities to include distance education. An existing grant program is designed to support various programs that allow students with learning or physical disabilities to participate in higher education, and the new legislation explicitly adds distance-education programs to that program. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.), author of the legislation, said, "The flexibility and access facilitated through distance education and electronic delivery methods also holds tremendous promise for eliminating barriers ... for students with disabilities." The National Technical Institute for the Deaf, established in 1965 by the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), uses technology tools to improve access for students with disabilities, and, according to Joeann Humbert, director of online learning at RIT, such tools sometimes benefit all students. The university developed a tool to search captions of video clips, according to Humbert, and the tool has become a favorite of all students. http://chronicle.com/prm/weekly/v50/i14/14a03401.htm