Ingrid Vanni: Outstanding Graduate Student in Special Education (High Incidence Disabilities)

Ingrid Vanni of Cumberland, Maine is the 2024 recipient of the Outstanding Graduate Student in Special Education (High Incidence Disabilities) Award. Read a Q&A with Vanni below.

What difference has UMaine made in your life and in helping you reach your goals?

UMaine’s online master’s in special education (high incidence disabilities) allowed me to obtain the credits needed to work toward a special education teaching certificate. It gave me a thorough understanding of how special education works from all angles. The online program also allowed me to work at a pace that fit with my already busy schedule.

Have you worked closely with a professor or mentor who made your UMaine experience better? If so, tell us about them.

My advisor, Sara Flanagan has been a huge help during my time as a graduate student at UMaine. I have had the pleasure of getting to know Sara as both my advisor and my professor during my time as a graduate student in the high-incidence special education program.  Since the time she was assigned to me, she has been attentive to my every question with timely and meaningful responses while navigating the graduate school process. At the same time, Sara has been an advocate for me and the first person I always reached out to during questioning times. She always provided helpful, timely and reassuring answers to any question, no matter how big or small. 

Sara was also my professor for SED 546: Writing Interventions for Students with Disabilities and SED 605: Seminar in Special Education. Sara’s lessons in SED 605 were paramount to my knowledge and application of research, as she pushed each of us in her class to fully utilize the research skills she was teaching in a comprehensive final research paper. Her lessons and teachings were instrumental in guiding us through each step in order to master the thesis writing process, and I feel confident that I would be able to write additional high-level papers based on what she taught us in her class.  In SED 546, Sara introduced us to applicable writing strategies that I was able to take directly back to my classroom and implement with my students with a high level of integrity due to the thoroughness of her instruction.  I am very grateful to have had Sara as both my advisor and my professor during my studies! 

What advice do you have for incoming graduate students to help them get off to the best start academically?

For an online program, make sure you check in on MaineStreet and Brightspace a few weeks before the class begins to see what textbooks need to be ordered so you have them in time. It’s also important to check in at the beginning of each week to see what the workload will be in order to manage your time effectively to get the work done each week. And lastly, take it a week at a time. It all comes together by the end of the semester!

Why UMaine?

UMaine provided an online graduate program that best fit my schedule as both a full-time working adult and a parent. Its flexibility allowed me to work at a pace that I could manage and fit into an already busy schedule!