Skip to content
ADVERTISEMENT
Sign In
  • Sections
    • News
    • Advice
    • The Review
  • Topics
    • Data
    • Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion
    • Finance & Operations
    • International
    • Leadership & Governance
    • Teaching & Learning
    • Scholarship & Research
    • Student Success
    • Technology
    • Transitions
    • The Workplace
  • Magazine
    • Current Issue
    • Special Issues
    • Podcast: College Matters from The Chronicle
  • Newsletters
  • Virtual Events
  • Ask Chron
  • Store
    • Featured Products
    • Reports
    • Data
    • Collections
    • Back Issues
  • Jobs
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
    • Professional Development
    • Career Resources
    • Virtual Career Fair
  • More
  • Sections
    • News
    • Advice
    • The Review
  • Topics
    • Data
    • Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion
    • Finance & Operations
    • International
    • Leadership & Governance
    • Teaching & Learning
    • Scholarship & Research
    • Student Success
    • Technology
    • Transitions
    • The Workplace
  • Magazine
    • Current Issue
    • Special Issues
    • Podcast: College Matters from The Chronicle
  • Newsletters
  • Virtual Events
  • Ask Chron
  • Store
    • Featured Products
    • Reports
    • Data
    • Collections
    • Back Issues
  • Jobs
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
    • Professional Development
    • Career Resources
    • Virtual Career Fair
    Upcoming Events:
    An AI-Driven Work Force
    University Transformation
Sign In
News

Serving Neurodiverse Students

On Leadership: Peter Eden

By Alexander C. Kafka January 3, 2018
Peter Eden
Play Now

Peter Eden is president of Landmark College, which serves students who are on the autism spectrum or who have dyslexia, attention deficit disorders, or other learning disabilities. He chats with The Chronicle about Landmark’s pedagogical approach, the changing culture around neurodiversity, and the rewards and challenges of the college’s mission.

To continue reading for FREE, please sign in.

Sign In

Or subscribe now to read with unlimited access for as low as $10/month.

Don’t have an account? Sign up now.

A free account provides you access to a limited number of free articles each month, plus newsletters, job postings, salary data, and exclusive store discounts.

Sign Up

Peter Eden
Play Now

Peter Eden is president of Landmark College, which serves students who are on the autism spectrum or who have dyslexia, attention deficit disorders, or other learning disabilities. He chats with The Chronicle about Landmark’s pedagogical approach, the changing culture around neurodiversity, and the rewards and challenges of the college’s mission.

TRANSCRIPT:

ALEXANDER KAFKA: Hi, I’m Alexander Kafka. I’m editor of The Chronicle of Higher Education‘s Idea Lab section. And my guest today is Peter Eden, who is president of Landmark College, in Putney, Vermont. Landmark is not just another small New England college; it serves students who have dyslexia and other learning disabilities, attention deficit disorders, or students who are on the autism spectrum. To begin with, Peter, can you tell me just a little bit about Landmark? How many students do you have?

PETER EDEN: Alex, we have about 450 residential full-time students. And as you mentioned, they’re all neurodiverse, typically with dyslexia, ADHD, or ASD.

ALEXANDER KAFKA: And because there’s a lot of personal attention to each student, you don’t have a typical student-to-faculty ratio. Can you tell me a little bit about that?

PETER EDEN: That’s correct. We have about 200 faculty and staff to serve those 450 students. We don’t infantilize them. We are allowed the luxury of small class sizes, of a really robust student-affairs operation outside the classroom, executive-function coaching, individual advisers, a lot of people who get it for these bright college-capable students with LD.

ALEXANDER KAFKA: Now a lot of general-population colleges are trying to serve neurodiverse students. And they have found, first of all, that it’s difficult, and second of all, that it’s very expensive. Are there lessons that you think they can learn from Landmark’s experience, or are there things that you think just by definition they can’t do as well on a mainstream campus?

PETER EDEN: Well, first of all, there are many students with neurodiversity who do just fine on some of these larger campuses, but a great many of them do fail. I would say these other institutions could learn a lot from Landmark College in terms of our pedagogy and also our practices, such as social-pragmatics programs for students on the autism spectrum. So there’s a lot that could be learned from this natural laboratory, which is Landmark College.

ALEXANDER KAFKA: With the expense involved and the really personalized education, how do you deal with the pressures on your tuitions and your overall expenses?

PETER EDEN: It’s not easy, of course. The college, in terms of the average in net price the family would pay, is quite competitive. However, indeed, with 200 faculty and staff for 450 students and all of our services, the sticker price is high. Again, we’re a nonprofit. So everything goes back into our model. We provide about $8 million a year in institutional aid. Eighty percent of our students will get aid from us. And access to this model has always been a priority since it started 32 years ago.

ALEXANDER KAFKA: One of the phrases that comes up a lot in literature around Landmark is universal design. And I was wondering if you could give us a kind of quick overview of what that means in terms of the curriculum and other aspects of education there.

ADVERTISEMENT

PETER EDEN: I’d love to. Universal design is generally a multiple means of presentation of content in a given course, of multiple different modalities for delivery, from the student and taking into consideration the heterogeneity you may see in any learning environment, the multiple learning disability or difficulty profiles in any learning environment.

So understanding from the very beginning that you have students with various strengths and various challenges. And we’re also building this into our web-based online programming, as well. So this allows the instructor to meet the different, more diverse students where they are.

ALEXANDER KAFKA: And then web-based teaching. That’s an area of expansion for you, right?

PETER EDEN: That’s correct. We are engineering our own courses with a lot of universal-design approaches online. And we deliver them to some juniors and seniors at LD-focused prep schools for college credit. It’s part of a dual-enrollment program, and it’s been quite successful thus far.

ADVERTISEMENT

ALEXANDER KAFKA: And those schools are just in your region or elsewhere too?

PETER EDEN: In the Northeast right now. We hope to scale this up a bit. And it allows the students with neurodiversity to learn how to learn online, generate some college credit but also some confidence and perhaps embolden them into attending college when maybe they thought it was out of reach.

ALEXANDER KAFKA: Now when Landmark started in the mid ‘80s we just didn’t hear as much, especially about autism and even other learning disabilities. And the whole culture now has changed quite a bit. It’s something in TV shows and movies that we see all the time. Does that change the way students or parents or others look at your mission at Landmark?

PETER EDEN: It’s changing very, very swiftly, Alex. Indeed when I arrived six years ago we didn’t use the term Asperger’s at the time. It wasn’t used very much. And now, especially for the young students, this is just part of life. It’s not so much of a shame or stigma associated with it. And this cultural phenomenon we’re seeing is wonderful, but it also can romanticize LD. And suggest to a viewer that there’s an automatic compensatory genius to someone with neurodiversity, that’s not fair necessarily.

ADVERTISEMENT

ALEXANDER KAFKA: As opposed to just a different way of learning.

PETER EDEN: Exactly. And learning and operating.

ALEXANDER KAFKA: Last, I want to touch a little bit about on your background. You came from a cell-biology and biotech background. How did you become interested in LD education at Landmark?

PETER EDEN: I started off as a molecular biologist, and I worked in the biotech industry for a while. And it’s fascinating. But I missed the campus environment. I wanted to teach. And my first job involved some administration. From there I became a college dean. And I loved the idea —

ALEXANDER KAFKA: And where was that?

PETER EDEN: That was north of Boston, at Endicott College. Wonderful five years, and I looked for the next opportunity. And I never thought I’d be lucky enough to find such a young school which needed to grow and evolve. So I’ve been able to help the great faculty and staff build in baccalaureate programs, web-based learning. And as the acorn turns into the oak tree, this was the expectation for this important college.

ADVERTISEMENT

ALEXANDER KAFKA: So, final question. If there is one priority for Landmark and for the kind of education that you provide there, what would it be?

PETER EDEN: I would say being able to deliver our model to the students wherever they are in the United States.

ALEXANDER KAFKA: Got it. Thank you very much for your time. It’s great having you here.

PETER EDEN: Thanks, Alex.

Alexander C. Kafka is a senior editor and oversees Idea Lab. Follow him on Twitter @AlexanderKafka, or email him at alexander.kafka@chronicle.com.

Read other items in On Leadership.
We welcome your thoughts and questions about this article. Please email the editors or submit a letter for publication.
Tags
Leadership & Governance
Share
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Facebook
  • Email
Kafka_Alexander_C.jpg
About the Author
Alexander C. Kafka
Alexander C. Kafka is a Chronicle senior editor. Email him at alexander.kafka@chronicle.com.

Related Content

Colleges Are Trying a Broad Approach to Autistic Students. What Will That Cost?
How Colleges Silence Eccentrics
Why We Dread Disability Myths

More News

Mangan-Censorship-0610.jpg
Academic Freedom
‘A Banner Year for Censorship’: More States Are Restricting Classroom Discussions on Race and Gender
On the day of his retirement party, Bob Morse poses for a portrait in the Washington, D.C., offices of U.S. News and World Report in June 2025. Morse led the magazine's influential and controversial college rankings efforts since its inception in 1988. Michael Theis, The Chronicle.
List Legacy
‘U.S. News’ Rankings Guru, Soon to Retire, Reflects on the Role He’s Played in Higher Ed
Black and white photo of the Morrill Hall building on the University of Minnesota campus with red covering one side.
Finance & operations
U. of Minnesota Tries to Soften the Blow of Tuition Hikes, Budget Cuts With Faculty Benefits
Photo illustration showing a figurine of a football player with a large price tag on it.
Athletics
Loans, Fees, and TV Money: Where Colleges Are Finding the Funds to Pay Athletes

From The Review

A stack of coins falling over. Motion blur. Falling economy concept. Isolated on white.
The Review | Opinion
Will We Get a More Moderate Endowment Tax?
By Phillip Levine
Photo illustration of a classical column built of paper, with colored wires overtaking it like vines of ivy
The Review | Essay
The Latest Awful EdTech Buzzword: “Learnings”
By Kit Nicholls
William F. Buckley, Jr.
The Review | Interview
William F. Buckley Jr. and the Origins of the Battle Against ‘Woke’
By Evan Goldstein

Upcoming Events

Plain_Acuity_DurableSkills_VF.png
Why Employers Value ‘Durable’ Skills
Warwick_Leadership_Javi.png
University Transformation: A Global Leadership Perspective
Lead With Insight
  • Explore Content
    • Latest News
    • Newsletters
    • Letters
    • Free Reports and Guides
    • Professional Development
    • Virtual Events
    • Chronicle Store
    • Chronicle Intelligence
    • Jobs in Higher Education
    • Post a Job
  • Know The Chronicle
    • About Us
    • Vision, Mission, Values
    • DEI at The Chronicle
    • Write for Us
    • Work at The Chronicle
    • Our Reporting Process
    • Advertise With Us
    • Brand Studio
    • Accessibility Statement
  • Account and Access
    • Manage Your Account
    • Manage Newsletters
    • Individual Subscriptions
    • Group and Institutional Access
    • Subscription & Account FAQ
  • Get Support
    • Contact Us
    • Reprints & Permissions
    • User Agreement
    • Terms and Conditions
    • Privacy Policy
    • California Privacy Policy
    • Do Not Sell My Personal Information
1255 23rd Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20037
© 2025 The Chronicle of Higher Education
The Chronicle of Higher Education is academe’s most trusted resource for independent journalism, career development, and forward-looking intelligence. Our readers lead, teach, learn, and innovate with insights from The Chronicle.
Follow Us
  • twitter
  • instagram
  • youtube
  • facebook
  • linkedin