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University of Wyoming

Cossairt career covers major special ed changes

   No one knows the challenges facing today’s special education teachers, and those who prepare them, better than retiring professor Ace Cossairt.

   In his 30 years on the College of Education faculty, Ace has participated in development of special ed as a rich discipline and a service to children with special needs. He’s witnessed the establishment and evolution of federal legislation requiring access to education for those children. 

    He’s also witnessed the impacts of those regulations on individual teachers and administrators. Through it all, Ace has been a steady resource and mentor to those who care about children who have special needs.

   Cossairt began his teaching career just as major federal mandates requiring accommodation for disabled students were being enacted. As a junior high science teacher in Washington, Ace experienced multiple challenges to his attempts to assist two students with muscular dystrophy. Special education services that are taken for granted today didn’t exist, and administrative interest in making adjustments was marginal at best.

   “It didn’t seem that we had enough to offer them, in terms of support,” he recalls.

    That experience sparked Cossairt’s interest and contributed to his decision to pursue graduate work in special education. Ace earned master’s and PhD degrees from the University of Kansas, focusing on behavior disorders. He remained at KU for a year, as an adjunct instructor while searching for the best fit for the next phase of his career. That best fit: the University of Wyoming. He visited the Laramie campus and immediately felt that UW could become an educational home.

   “I thought, ‘Laramie and the University of Wyoming look to be the best of all possible worlds as a place to live and work.’”

   The program Cossairt joined in 1975 approached the teaching of special education in a way that was fairly unique at the time. Rather than training to address specific categorical disabilities, the UW special education curriculum prepared pre-service teachers to work with a broad range of disabilities.

   “We’ve always been cross-categorical, and generalist, to meet the needs of the state,”  Cossairt says.

   Teachers who work in Wyoming may be responsible for all special education students for an entire district and may encounter a different mix of challenges every year.

   “We have to provide, as much as possible, a wide base of skills that they can draw from to serve all students’ special needs, K-12,” Ace says.

   As emphasis has shifted toward inclusion nationally, so has the discipline’s focus, away from categorical specialization.

   “Our generalist approach was a bit ahead of its time,” Cossairt says.

   Ace appreciates the pressures special education teachers face on a daily basis. He also understands how those pressures affect recruitment and retention of faculty qualified to teach in the field.

   “The demand has always far out-stripped supply in special ed across the nation,”  Cossairt notes.

   Four qualities increase the potential for success as a special education teacher, he says: flexibility, patience, persistence and a sense of humor.

   “Special education is a field where progress is measured in very small steps,” he says.

   As Ace looks toward a post-retirement life, he admits a bit of sadness as daily contact with students ends.

    “I’ll miss the teaching and the students,” he says. “It’s a delight to work with them. You gain an energy from them…They’re a unique group.”

   In addition to having more time for favorite outdoor pursuits like skiing and hunting, Cossairt looks forward to continuing his involvement with his professional organizations and to exploring new parts of the world.