AUCD is offering scholarships to support LEND audiology trainees in attending the Early Hearing Detection and Intervention Annual Conference on March 13-15, 2022. All current LEND audiology trainees, including those in their externship year, are eligible to apply.

In December 2021, AUCD trainee Alicia Zhang worked with MN LEND fellows Raniya Yimam and Brittany Miller to support a community-based, sensory-friendly vaccine clinic in Minneapolis, MN. Zhang, Yimam, and Miller are mentored by Dr. Jen Hall-Lande and Dr. Lynda Lahti Anderson at the MN LEND program at the Institute on Community Integration (ICI), which is also the MN UCEDD. This sensory-friendly clinic is a collaboration among community partners, including the Autism Society of Minnesota (AUSM), the Multicultural Autism Action Network, and Hennepin County Healthcare.

For her "Outstanding Research on Autism in Higher Education," Jessica Monahan, research manager with the University of Delaware Center for Disabilities Studies' Spectrum Scholars program, has won an inaugural Excellence in Autism Support award from the College Autism Network.

Capping a year of learning and interacting almost entirely online, the 29 graduates of MN LEND certificate program recently closed out their final ceremony with messages from Minnesota's lieutenant governor, state senators from both political parties, a former MN LEND fellow, and others.

It has been more than a year since we started adapting to the "new conditions" of living in a world with the COVID-19 pandemic. Transitioning from face-to-face to all-virtual interactions was not as much fun as the option of "working and studying from the bedroom" sounded. Not only did we start missing familiar faces, but we had to limit new relationships to connections traveling through router devices and Zoom platforms. Despite these limitations, the pandemic has triggered a virtual realm of opportunity. It has challenged our creativity and our passion to keep pursuing the visions and missions we sought out in "normal" times. It invited us to think outside the box and has extended connectivity and networking beyond local boundaries. The 2021 LEND cohort has experienced this firsthand.

AUCD is excited to announce that recruitment is now open for the 2021 AUCD Emerging Leaders Map! This year's theme is "Promoting Health Equity: Identifying Access Barriers and Protecting Rights to Services for People with Disabilities."

The Alaska LEND Without Walls is a program that has embraced video teleconferencing as a method to reach faculty and fellows across the geographically vast state. During the current pandemic, the Alaska LEND program utilized a virtual environment for all activities. As part of the annual fall semester "face to face" seminar, interdisciplinary faculty and fellows participate in a mock developmental assessment.

The Institute for Disability Studies (IDS) Transition to Adulthood Programs announce a new 2021 campaign, #WhatsYourPurpose2021. Throughout the year, transition leaders including youth/young adults with and without disabilities, their family members and those that serve them will be featured in short videos and social media posts promoting transition successes and challenging others to pursue their goals. Each video and post will highlight young adults and members of their support networks sharing their future life purposes.