College of Adaptive Arts
College of Adaptive Arts is a cutting edge nonprofit in San Jose, CA paving a new path for adults with special needs who historically have not had access to college education to have a safe and adaptive collegiate environment to continue to learn, grow, and become the best versions of themselves. CAA provides a safe and engaging lifelong educational environment where the adult students can flourish, thrive, and push the boundaries of their full potential. CAA offers 1-hour classes in 10 Schools of Instruction, simulating a full liberal arts education that you will find at any campus of higher learning.
ABOUT THE COLLEGE
College of Adaptive Arts provides a lifelong, equitable collegiate experience to adults with special needs who historically have not had access to college education. Students ages 18+ can take an individual class for a 3-unit certificate or can enroll in a particular course of study and complete a 60-unit undergraduate, 120-unit graduate, and 240-unit post-graduate articulated curriculum. College of Adaptive Arts is an institution of lifelong learners, so once the undergraduate course of study is completed, students are welcomed and encouraged to return to enroll in a graduate program designed to get them more engaged and partnered in the community.
CAA STORY
In 2009, DeAnna Pursai and Dr. Pamela Lindsay joined up to begin a nonprofit entitled College of Adaptive Arts (CAA). They realized there was a rich pool of talents and abilities among adults with disabilities waiting to be illuminated.
The vision of CAA is to empower adults with special needs to creatively transform perception of disability. CAA plans to become as widespread and robust in the education space that the Special Olympics model provides in the athletic space. This is an institution of higher education where adults have opportunities to learn from a diverse and rich curriculum that will enable them to live a full and empowered life as successful, contributing members of the community.
CAA started in the summer of 2009 with 12 adult students in a single musical theatre class. As of the Winter Quarter 2021, student enrollment has climbed to 140+ adult students taking over 75+ course offerings in 10 Schools of Instruction happening exclusively online over Zoom during the COVID pandemic..
College of Adaptive Arts represents a unique model of adult service delivery that the CAA Mountain Movers Leadership Team believes is desperately needed. College of Adaptive Arts allows individuals to channel their passion and achieve competency to the best of the individual’s ability in an arts discipline such as the fine arts, dance, theatre, digital arts and video/television as well as in the academic disciplines of Communications, Science & Technology, Library Arts and Health and Wellness.
Unlike typical therapeutic recreational programs that offer a smorgasbord of services the College of Adaptive Arts provides a curriculum that coherently builds upon each course, allowing the adult learner to grow in the particular area of their choice and interest.
CAA is not an adult day home model; it is an equitable model of higher education, serving as a natural extension to the community college model. It is designed to be a value-added model based on the interests, choices, talents, and desires of the adult students with differing abilities. There is a defined curriculum, and the intent is to teach new skills to adults who are interested in improving in a particular area of the arts.
It is CAA’s belief that for individuals with special needs, many of them may develop at different rates that than their typically-developing counterparts. Consequently, many adults are just finding out who they are, where their interests and passions lie, and how they can be of maximum service to the community at just about the same time that so many services are discontinued because they have aged out of the public school system.
It is our belief that these adults have an incredible wealth of talent, ability, and community contribution capacity when people in the typically-developing world can create a safe, engaging, and creative outlet for their abilities to be optimally illuminated and capitalized upon.