Eastern Michigan University Department of Special Education

The Eastern Michigan University Department of Special Education is among the oldest special education programs in the United States. The Department of Special Education falls under the Eastern Michigan University College of Education at Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti, Michigan. The Eastern Michigan University Department of Special Education provides extensive studies for those wanting to participate in the disabled community. There are currently five programs or courses of study one may choose to follow, if they wish to obtain a bachelor's degree and a recommendation to the Michigan Department of Education K–12 endorsement as a teacher of students with impairments.

Eastern Michigan University Department of Special Education is among the oldest special education program in the United States. In 1923, the Michigan State Legislature passed bills that gave school districts state funds if they included and established special schools for handicapped students: those of cognitive impairment, those of the deaf, those who were crippled or those who were visually impaired. Though the receiving state funds seemed incising, the new bills also included that the educators of these new special schools must be specifically trained for their work. The state board of education came to the realization that such teachers were of no supply. They then established an official department at the Michigan State Normal College (previous name of Eastern Michigan University until 1956). This was the beginning of Eastern Michigan's Department of Education. By 1928, Michigan State Normal College provided classes for teachers training to be educators of the deaf and hard of hearing (now referred to as hearing impaired), for the crippled (now referred to as physical and other health impairments) and for the mentally retarded (now cognitively impaired). In 1929, a class for children with defective vision (now visually impaired) was established. Though the department was made official in 1923, the very first education course in the program was in the summer of 1915 when Dr. Charles Scott Berry took his work from the Feeble-minded school of Lapeer to Michigan State Normal College. Dr. Berry had taken charge of the school until the summer of 1917, where Professor Charles Elliott claimed his spot. The first laboratory class for teachers of the disabled was made possible in 1918, having Miss Blanche Towne as the training teacher. Since then, all of the work set forth by Dr. Berry has been for training teachers for children with various impairments.

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