ICI: 40 Years of Community Living
Minnesota First Lady Gwen Walz, ICI Director Amy Hewitt, and Special Olympics Chairman Tim Shriver were among the speakers at the Institute on Community Integration’s 40th anniversary event on October 15, 2025.
In a stirring address commemorating the Institute on Community Integration’s 40th anniversary, Special Olympics Chairman Tim Shriver urged disability advocates to deepen their commitment to inclusion amid funding cuts and other challenges.
Senator Amy Klobuchar (via video) and Minnesota First Lady Gwen Walz were among several other speakers for the October 15 event, which drew more than 350 attendees to McNamara Alumni Center at the University of Minnesota. ICI, part of the University’s College of Education + Human Development, is a designated University Center of Excellence in Developmental Disabilities, a network of research and training centers created under a federal disability law signed by President John F. Kennedy in 1963. ICI began in 1985.
Shriver, a nephew of President Kennedy, invoked the legacy of his family’s decision not to institutionalize the President’s sister Rosemary as a young child, as many families with children with intellectual and other developmental disabilities (IDD) were advised to do well into the middle of the 20th century. That single act of resistance, which led to the founding of Special Olympics and helped influence public attitudes about disability, is as relevant today as it was then, Shriver said.
“The country could learn a lot from this movement,” he said. “When we changed the way we treated each other, we got a different outcome. We had people locked up for life and treated as subhuman, and we got horrible outcomes. We started to treat them with dignity and hope and possibility and independence, and we got fantastic outcomes.”
He said he believes President Kennedy learned as much about how to be a political leader from Rosemary as he did from the history lessons of other presidents: that when one gives themselves unselfishly to another human being, they get their best selves back.
Shriver called this a moment requiring courage: “Acts of inclusion are acts of resistance… You came to this work because you’re willing to make acts of resistance. Now is your time.”
Shriver praised ICI for shaping generations of educators and advocates.
“[ICI] has played such an important role in the education of a generation of special educators like me … I am really grateful and honored to be part of a gathering of this importance, and for an institution of this importance.”
ICI Director Amy Hewitt, University President Emeritus Robert Bruininks (founding director of ICI), CEHD Dean Michael Rodriguez, and Ellie Wilson of the Autism Society of Minnesota also spoke at the event, along with video messages from other distinguished friends of the Institute.
Unveiling a visual disability history timeline created to mark the 40th anniversary, Hewitt spoke about the deinstitutionalization of people with IDD, calling it one of the greatest public policy successes of our time. She also noted that this hard-won progress is fragile.
“It shows that it’s possible when values meet vision and when bipartisan leadership and community action align. But progress doesn’t guarantee permanence,” she said, citing the dismantling of the U.S. Department of Education, service provider agency closures, and growing waitlists for services. “Youth and adults with disabilities are ending up where we promised they’d never return—hospital wards, jails, emergency rooms, institutions, and segregated schools.”
Hewitt challenged leaders to raise expectations.
“We must be bold enough to totally rethink our systems. We continue to focus on the individual and their needs, but has this focus resulted in letting the community off the hook? What are we doing to change the community? What are our expectations of businesses, of neighbors, of faith communities? We must set expectations and hold these entities accountable for inclusion, too. None of this will be easy. But our history shows us that we know how to do hard things.”
Walz focused on ICI’s work as part of the Developmental Disabilities Act network in Minnesota, which also includes the Governor’s Council on Developmental Disabilities and the Minnesota Disability Law Center.
“Minnesotans need you now more than ever,” Walz said. “We must support our mutual commitment to transform lives and strengthen Minnesota communities. This idea of belonging and opportunity and value and inclusion, this is not a destination; it is a daily practice.”
In her video remarks, Klobuchar praised ICI’s efforts to support people with disabilities to move from subminimum wage workshops to competitive jobs in the community. She vowed to continue fighting recent Medicaid cuts and expand her advocacy for ABLE accounts that help people with disabilities save for their futures.
During its 40 years, the Institute has contributed significantly to the deinstitutionalization, community living, and self-determination of people with IDD. Its Residential Information Systems Project is one of three longitudinal data projects of national significance. It serves as the Minnesota site of the Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network, which tracks autism prevalence. Its Check & Connect intervention model for dropout prevention has been used in all 50 states and throughout the world. Other programs address critical workforce shortages in skilled professionals who support people with IDD, and a multi-disciplinary fellowship program in neurodevelopmental disabilities that spans more than 16 disciplines across the University, among dozens of other ongoing projects. It is also home to the National Center on Educational Outcomes, a leader in inclusive education.
As one of the night’s final speakers, Wilson thanked ICI for its work and for its partnerships across the disability field.
“Thank you, ICI, for being a generator in the dark. Thank you for your deep roots and firm ground, and for your insistence on dignity and inclusion. Thank you for your hard work, for your vision, your moral courage, and for being the backbone of this community, a community that has learned its power with your help.”