30th Anniversary History Book

the Village Apartments, the Woodward Street Apartments, Beacon Commons and RAP Hall. The college now boasts a 15-acre campus and owns 27 buildings in and around downtown Leesburg. The school also occupies four buildings and 4.5 acres on its Floral City, Fla. property — about 36 miles west of Leesburg — used by the anthrozoology department for environmental and conservation study. “We are really becoming quite a college now,” said Chandler, a 17-year veteran of the school. The 435-member student body, she said, comes from all over the country, including New York state, New Jersey, Chicago, Texas and California, 41 states and territories in all. About 30 percent of the students are Florida residents. And increasingly, students worldwide have sought out Beacon’s unique style, including students recently from Bolivia, Kenya, England, Bermuda. Botswana and India. As for learning disabilities, nearly six in 10 Beacon students have ADHD, while a lesser percent deals with dyscalculia (trouble with numbers), dyslexia and other issues, such as difficulty controlling emotions. From one major in 1989, Beacon now offers nine majors and 14 minors. The majors: anthrozoology, business management, computer information, human services, humanities, psychology and studio arts. The minors: entrepreneurship, anthrozoology, business management, computer information systems, CIS: web and digital media;

hospitality; human services, criminal justice, education, studio arts, English/literature, game design, history and psychology. And after starting out with 36 students and a campus that amounted to two rented buildings, Beacon was rated the No. 1 college or university for students with learning disabilities during the 2019 school year in Peterson’s and the No. 1 school for students with disabilities by BestValueSchools.com. Here are some of the reasons why:

Employment/Graduate School Placement 83.5% (More than eight in 10 of Beacon students go on to a job or graduate school after graduation.)

%

0

7

Four-year graduation rate (almost double the four-year national graduation average for all students and close to three times better than the estimated 28 percent six- year rate for students with diagnosed learning disabilities.)

Practical Experience Starting with the class of 2013, fully 100 percent of Beacon students gained invaluable hands- on experience through internships, work, volunteering and job shadowing.

The goal, quite simply, is to prepare students for life after college. 100%

PAGE 30