Although many people don’t realize it, Joliet Junior College has a program to help students with disabilities succeed in school.

The Student Accommodations and Resources, or StAR, office arranges accommodations for students and makes sure that the administration, faculty and staff provides the assistance.

On June 1, Mindy Diaz, the intake and out-reach specialist for the program, visit-ed the Center and spoke to a group of students about the advantages of attending the junior college and using the services offered by the StAR office.

“I want to make sure whoever comes to Joliet Junior College stays at Joliet Junior College,” Ms. Diaz told the group.

The employees at the StAR office try to empower the students with disabilities. In college, unlike in high school, students must learn to advocate for themselves, she explained. “There are no teachers (in college) taking a look at your progress and saying you ought to go to a tutor,” Ms. Diaz said. “That responsibility will fall on you.”

The Center’s students were very interested in the presentation and had many questions. “Do you have to pay for tutors?” stu-dent Montrell Taylor asked.

Mindy Diaz tells a group of Joliet Job Corps Center students about the services to help people with disabilities.

Ms. Diaz assured him that on-campus tutoring was free.

Ms. Diaz also explained other differences between high school and college, noting that there wasn’t special education. “A class is a class is a class,” she said.