Emeritus University Professor Passes Torch to Rehabilitation Program Graduate

Photo by Heidi Stambuck

Rick Roessler shows the first edition, left, of the textbook he co-authored with Stanford Rubin and the seventh edition to which Phillip Rumrill was added as an author.

Rick Roessler has won national awards in the field of rehabilitation education and research. He has been awarded grant funding to research workplace challenges faced by people with disabilities. He has taught and advised numerous graduate students who have gone on to teach and conduct research at the university level like him and others who lead rehabilitation programs around the United States. Roessler is credited with helping the rehabilitation program at the University of Arkansas remain ranked in the top 20 of best graduate programs by U.S. News & World Report for more than a decade.

Roessler retired from the University of Arkansas in 2010 with this long list of accomplishments, including co-authoring the seminal textbook of the rehabilitation field that he and Stanford Rubin first published in 1978.

"In 1975, we began team-teaching the foundations course in the rehabilitation master's program, and there was no suitable textbook," Roessler recalled recently. "We developed the first edition of the book by putting together our class lectures. And, we kept revising our text because it had life and was being used."

After he retired, Roessler wasn't sure how much longer he and Rubin, also retired now, wanted to continue the arduous task of updating the textbook, Foundations of the Vocational Rehabilitation Process, published by Pro Ed. So, when he and Rubin recently published the seventh edition of their textbook, they included a third author: Phillip Rumrill. Rumrill earned his doctorate in rehabilitation education and research from the U of A in 1993. He directs the Center for Disability Studies at Kent State University in Ohio, where he teaches and also coordinates the rehabilitation counseling program.

"It's hard to really even put in words," Rumrill said about becoming co-author of the Roessler/Rubin textbook. "This book is one of the most widely circulated books in our field for sure. It is probably the most cited book in our field in the last 40 years. Everyone who has gone through rehab programs has read it."

Rumrill said he was speechless when Roessler first asked him to help with the book.

"It was partly because of all Rick has done for me, all of the opportunities he has created," Rumrill said. "Certain people come into your life at certain times when it's really important and they take you under their wing. He came into my life at the time I was just getting started. This is really special for me. I can't think of any greater honor than that coming from him."

The book is not used only in the classroom.

The certification body that administers the national exam for rehabilitation counseling practitioners keeps the textbook at the top of its list of resources recommended for those studying for the exam, Rumrill said. Practitioners buy it and use it to keep up in the field, he said.

Roessler said it's important to keep updating the book as new laws are passed or existing laws are changed and as new technology becomes available to assist people with disabilities. Updated editions also incorporate new research findings that show whether specific rehabilitation interventions are effective. For example, at Kent State, Rumrill is researching the use of iPads by college students with traumatic brain injuries as a scheduling tool to assist with assignments.

Other issues include the changing role of the rehabilitation counselor. It's also important to keep historical information about the rehabilitation field in the book, Roessler said, so that future practitioners understand the changes in past thinking from serving people in large, institutional settings that isolated them to now helping people live as independently as possible, using community services and resources available to everyone.

"The philosophy now is that people with disabilities should live in the community and work in the community and have access to the typical lifespan choices of school and work as everyone else," Roessler said. "Rehabilitation counselors seek to help people with disabilities experience good quality of life, and we know that one predictor of that is employment."

Rumrill is also helping Roessler and Rubin with an update of their case management textbook published by Pro Ed.

Roessler and Rumrill continue to work together on research about employment barriers that is funded by the National Multiple Sclerosis Society in a continuation of grants they started receiving when Rumrill was a student. Roessler is also hopeful Rumrill will take over work on a special education curriculum that addresses career development and employment preparation for secondary students with disabilities.

"It is important that these things continue," Roessler said. "It becomes a labor of love over time, and people such as Phil have been a joy to work with."