Organizer’s Forum: Topic – Disability Organizing on College Campuses
TUESDAY, October 21st
Join our next call to hear about the exciting organizing happening on college campuses! Speakers will talk about the work they’ve done, share lessons learned with other disabled students, and talk about how this work is connected with the disability rights movement.
Questions we’ll explore
- What is coming out of disability campus groups?
- How can allies outside of college connect with or support campus organizing?
- Why is college campus organizing important to the disability community or the disability rights movement?
- How do college demographics compare with the mainstream disability rights movement?
- How are students organizing for good disability services?
Speakers
Maddy Ruvolo, Systems Change Advocate at the Marin Center for Independent Living. Maddy graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Scripps College in 2014, where she was the president/co-founder of the Disability Illness and Difference Alliance (DIDA), a campus organization for disabled students and their allies.
Reba Landry, Long Term Support Service, and Aging and Disability Resource Connection Coordinator for Community Resources for Independent Living in Hayward. She received her Master’s of Social Work from the University of Pittsburgh in 2012, with a specialization in Community Organizing. While at Pitt, she facilitated the founding of Students for Disability Advocacy group, which focuses on addressing issues of accessibility in all aspects of the campus experience.
Additional speakers to be announced.
TUESDAY, October 21, 1-2 pm Eastern time, 12-1 Central time, 11-12 Mountain time, 10-11 am Pacific time
- Call in number: 1-213-342-3000
- Code: 193134#
To get an idea of who joins our calls, if you are interested in joining on Tuesday, please fill out this quick form!
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Background
The Organizing Workgroup of the National Disability Leadership Alliance hosts these calls the third Tuesday of every month as a resource for disability organizers, in an effort toward building the organizing capacity of the disability community across the country. They generally follow the format of a Welcome followed by 2-3 experts in a given area speaking for a few minutes on their experiences, advice and challenges. The calls include a 20-30 minute question and answer period.
To ask questions via CART: Sign-in to the Chat function on the right side of the transcript and type your question. One of the call facilitators will read out any questions posted there.
Because we want to maximize the generously donated CART services, we will begin the call promptly at 1pm and end the call promptly at 2pm (eastern time). A few other reminders about call etiquette:
- Say your name before each time you speak
- Speak one at a time
- Speak slowly and as clearly as possible
So you can mark your calendars now, Organizer’s Forums are held on the 3rd Tuesday of every month. If you have suggestions for call topics or presenters for upcoming topics, please email them to jlehman7@gmail.com or dcoleman@cdrnys.org.
Looking forward to talking with you all!
Jessica Lehman and Diane Coleman
Co-Chairs, National Organizing Workgroup
Date: 10 21 14
**THIS TEXT IS BEING PROVIDED IN A ROUGH DRAFT FORMAT. COMMUNICATION ACCESS REALTIME TRANSLATION IS PROVIDED IN ORDER TO FACILITATE COMMUNICATION ACCESSIBILITY AND MAY NOT BE TOTALLY VERBATIM. PLEASE CHECK WITH THE SPEAKER(s) FOR ANY CLARIFICATION.
[technical issues]
>> Maddy: One of the most important things I think coming out of campus groups is I guess sort of resistance to a lot of like mainstream college culture that says, you know, you have to work yourself to death basically. You have to stay up all night. You have to do 1 million things and that is the only way you can be successful and only way you have a full and real college experience. And at least in the group that I was I’m sorry. At least in the group that I was part of one of the biggest things that we talked about is just sort of the way in which the mainstream college experience doesn’t work for a lot of disabled students. And I guess maybe I should give a little bit of background about the group that I was part of. So I formed it with some friends my sophomore year of college and sort of as a response to the fact that there was no conversation happening about disability on campus and those of us who sort of managed to find each other and are feeling isolated and we faced kind of a lot of
>> We faced a lot of resistance at first in terms of we tried to join the like the umbrella of social justice organization or the Social Justice Center and they didn’t want a disability group. And so we decided to just sort of do it separate from that. And we’re able to over time build up our membership and start having events and we did panels for professors and we did ally training for students. And, so, it is actually a pretty strong group now. But I think one of the biggest things that is different in our group from like the mainstream disability community is that most of the people in our group their disabilities were either mental health disabilities or chronic health disabilities. There were some people who had other types of disabilities but I think that really reflected sort of the demographics of disabled students on college campuses. And with something that I guess when I sort of started getting involved with the mainstream disability I realized that wasn’t it didn’t reflect the bullying going on in the mainstream disability community. I guess in terms of allies connecting with campus organizing, I wish there had been like when I was starting out I just wish there had been more resources that were readily available. Because we sort of felt like we were like reinventing or that we were inventing the wheel even though like there is obviously now I know that there is so many resources out there and there is so many people who would have wanted to help us. But I guess there wasn’t a lot. It was very easily Googlable and one thing that I talked to alley about is trying to create some sort of a network of like student disability organizations having more resources available so that students who do want to start something on their campuses or students who have already started something on their campuses have a place to turn and have resources to go to and people who can say they have done this before. This is how we responded and tried to make these moves. And just to provide a little bit more so port and then in terms of how students are organizing for good disability services, I think it really depends on the demographics of the group like what your group wants to focus on. But for us one of the biggest things that happened was that they were our school is considering building a Disability Resource Center. And that got delayed for a long time. And, so, one of the biggest things that I was involved with while I was at school is like actually getting that forward and getting that to happen. And also renegotiating sort of the purpose of the center because originally it was envisioned as a place for student services and we wanted it to be a place for disability culture and disability community because I think one of the biggest issues for disabled students on campus they’re seen as a group of students that receive services and not a group of students that have a particular like, you know, emotional needs that are related to their disabilities or a particular community. And it was interesting for us. One of the things that students are working on now is trying to get our Dean of Students office to have like a golf cart so students can get rides to class if they’re not feeling well. Which is like pretty connected to I guess like chronic health disabilities and so there wasn’t there hasn’t been as much organizing around physical access because there has not been as many students involved in the club who have physical disabilities. So I guess I’m hoping to hear from some of the other speakers about sort of the demographics of their own organizations and how that impacted the types of work that they were going to do. I think that is I guess for a start that is what I would say for some of those questions.
>> Jessica: Thank you so much, Maddy. That was a great start. Gave us a lot of food for thought. So next if it is okay we’ll go to Stephanie Woodward who is the Director of Advocacy at the Center for Disability Rights in Rochester, New York. And Stephanie was the President of the Disability Law Society. And go ahead, Stephanie.
>> Stephanie: Okay. Just double checking. Yeah, at Syracuse I was lucky to go into a college that already has a strong disability rights background. And so they did have a disability law society already set up. And it was set around disability rights as well. Disability law society was not as strong or respected as a group. So we really decided to accept up our game. And it is conversations on campus that we felt we should be involved in. They were building a new Law School. We felt that if there was any Law School not only should it be ADA compliant but go beyond compliance because we have a disability law program and we have a disability studies masters program and we wanted to really set the example.
So we basically forced ourselves into meetings and met with architects once a month and the result of that was incredible building just opened this year and I went back to see it. It is really ridiculously accessible. That is an exciting thing that we did as a group on campus. We also tried to bring in a lot of disability rights speaker from off campus to inform people with who didn’t have disabilities or who were not involved in disability rights about what was going on. So we had Ari and Bruce darling and I called all my friends and made them come and speak at CDR or the Law School. And we also worked with there is two other student groups at Syracuse. There was the disability student union which is the undergrad group that is interested in disability issues and then the beyond compliance coordinating committee which is the graduate level. So, I mean, Syracuse is really jam packed full of disability students and then we opened the first disability cultural center. Which is a cultural center not a disability services center and the cultural center is very much like an LGBT culture center on campus and it has full time staff people and students working there and really served as a hub for all the three groups to coordinate activities. We had an abilities expo where we had sports, modified sports that anyone in the world could come and check it out.
Now that I’m no longer a student, I work to use the student groups to my advantage so right now in New York we’re having we’re building a coalition of disability voters so voters with disabilities and voters that care about disability issues, even if you don’t care about a disability. Our goal is to get 5,000. I figure that me and my staff can’t get 5000 people on our own. So I made a quick call to the three different groups and said, hey, guys, I need people and you guys have a whole campus full of people. What is going on they have really gladly stepped up their game and got the word out on that when I need them to do stuff for ADAPT, they held an ADAPT fundraiser while I was there. So they have a lot of students that need something to do so I I use them as much as possible and they’re always very happy to be part of the bigger picture and it is not just things to do on campus because well as a student I was happy to do things on campus. It is also great to do things that affect disability rights off campus as well. That is all I have got.
>> Jessica: Thank you, Stephanie. That feels a lot of fun hearing about the exciting work that you have done there. Thank you. And next we’ll hear from Reba Landry who is the long term support service and aging resource center for independent in Hayward. She received her masters in
Social work from University of Pittsburgh in 2012 with a specialization in community organizing. And while she was there she facilitated the sounding of students for disability advocacy group which focuses on addressing issues of accessibility and all aspects of the campus experience. Go ahead, Reba.
>> Reba: Thank you, Jessica. Good morning, everybody. Yes, as this is like Maddy this is my first time doing one of these calls since I left graduate school so thank you for the opportunity to be here and I do have to agree with one of the things that Maddy said that really stuck out to me is that she wanted to or your group if I understand wanted to fight the understanding that students with disabilities were not actually people that they were more just students that received services on campus and that is something that our group was founded primarily to address on campus. Just a little background for the students on disability advocacy group. In doing my internships, my practicum, the second year, I was brought on I actually worked out of the school of social work office to do some assessment of accessibility and disability knowledge on campus and that was to reach out to the professors and department as well as the students and to make an evaluation and being a student with myself, I certainly a student with a disability myself I certainly knew where to start offer thought I knew where to start as far as how students with disabilities felt on campus. I started a survey and began to do some outreach. I would say that University of Pittsburgh works very hard to increase diversity on campus and I apologize. I have a little bit of a raspy throat, you all. They work very hard to increase diversity on campus and they bring students in from many places all over the country. It is one of the things that they’re very proud of.
One of the issues was arising is that they were definitely also trying to outreach two students with disabilities and bring them in; however, students with disabilities began to feel as though they were welcomed but not necessarily prepared for. We had a wonderful Disability Resource Center that was well funded; however, it tended to focus more demographically on being able to help people in getting basic course accommodations which is what we needed. But they were also matters that went, if not ignored, at least unattended to as far as issues with disability classrooms getting into buildings and screen readers on campus. And what would happen is students would find themselves doing their best to advocate for themselves in the beginning within their classrooms within their departments in the libraries where the computer technology was and they would also be referred to disability resources and services and disability resource services would say, take it up with the library. Take it up with your Professor. So we one of the major things that we wanted to address is that we wanted to get rid of the referral loop and we wanted to work to do outreach on campus, educate professors and department heads and sort of hold the University accountable for being knowledgeable about the population of students that it is bringing in all areas and what is needed and being able to have an open honest conversation about things that are going on.
I remember the biggest example was finding out that one of the biggest issues we came across which you wouldn’t necessarily expect to find in a university level was actually accessible graduate student housing for those of you that have not been to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It is a city on numerous hills. And the housing market, apartment market was at about 95%. There was on campus housing for undergraduate students but not necessarily graduate students. And we did find out MSUN the medical school, and we ended up having to do some advocacy getting students with disabilities who are in graduate schools but not necessarily medical school where that was getting them moved into the dorm for medical school students because they were actually people living in the ADA accessible rooms that didn’t have disabilities. So sort of doing some doing some organizations on campus.
And this was originally a project just hoped to start a conversation. My ideal goal was to start an advocacy group. We didn’t know if that would happen. We were fortunate. We had a lot of people show up as far as can demographics and I think that you can understand given the information that I just gave you, many of the students that showed up had physical disabilities because they were one of the biggest barriers on campus where access barriers we did also have students with mental health and learning disabilities coming in and join the group.
We were able to, by the spring term, by April, elect officers to the board and they were beginning to start riding their constitution and appeal to become an officially recognized group on campus.
Trying to make sure that I covered everything here. I think I’m good.
>> Jessica: Great, thank you, Reba. I love that you have had very different experiences and ideas to share. I’m looking forward to the discussion. Our last speaker today is Allie who is the youth transition with the HFC Foundation and National Council on Independent Living in Washington, D.C. She’s one of the curators of a social media platform, Disability Solidarity. Before her work with NCIL as an American university student Allie founded a student organization called the Disability Rights Coalition. She organized around enter social just. Take it away, Allie.
>> Allie: Thank you so much for having me. This is also my first call. I’m really excited to be here and to thank all the folks who have shared before me. You’re right on point. I don’t want to be too repetitive because I think the general theme after assuming that students with disabilities on college campuses are just students who are receiving services and not a crucial part of campus diversity. And that was that concept of disability being essential to campus diversity was the one of the huge I guess cores of the Disability Rights Coalition which I founded with a few friends of mine my sophomore year at American university.
And before that what seemed to be the case at AU was more of an awareness base and not surprisingly like more of a medical model base on disability which I do have to just note that from my perspective, the the fact that there is even a disability organization at college campus is rare. We have the extreme of incredible organizing at Syracuse which is just amazing and unfortunately not the norm. And, so, I think that all of us here have experience organizing but the majority of us started it which means that it is just rare. So I guess what is coming out of disability campus organizations in terms of Disability Rights Coalition, the core of Disability Rights Coalition was to create a space where disability was diversity and to create a safe space where students with disabilities is a diversity of disabilities could talk about disability identity, disability culture. It was and it was difficult from my perspective and I will be very honest in that.
I have a lot of lessons learned from Disability Rights Coalition in the work I did because majority I would say probably about 50% of the people who engaged in the group did not identify. And that didn’t mean that we didn’t angle the group from a disability identity culture and community perspective but it was very difficult to get students with disabilities to come because students with disabilities don’t want to identify. And, so, some of the things that we did was create that safe space. We did some of the other things that we did was in terms of that diversity pool, we worked a lot with the center for diversity and inclusion at American university and kind of caused a right around the fact that the disability was not included into the center of diversity and inclusion. But we facilitated an allied relationship with what we would call CDI and they’re very supportive and are very aware of disability and in terms of including disability in their in their programming that was going on around campus.
We also through the Disability Rights Coalition we made sure that people knew about us because we would, for example, we would table for every heritage month and we would share with the community at AU how disability intersected with whatever community was being honored that month regarding that heritage month. So, for instance, black history month we talked all about black disabled folks and the intersections of those communities and so that is an example. I also think that I just want to pull attention to the student veteran groups on college campuses. They may not be they may not be facilitating, organizing from social model of disability. But those are such hubs of students with disabilities and, so, looking at I’m there is student veterans association of America which has over 1000 I think it is over like 1000 college groups across the country doing veterans, organizing, so I think that is something that is also coming out of disability related campus groups. And something that we did help facilitating AU is that the LGBT center did a type of panel program where students with students who identified in the LGBTQ would go into classrooms and talk about coming out. And talk about the basic language used to use within that community and we actually created a disability diversity panel that was brought to specifically sociology classes and I was really upset that sociology never talked about ableism which is really ironic because that is all we study and that is another thing Disability Rights Coalition did. I have been blabbing on a little bit just about what is coming out of disability campus groups but I wanted to take or to give everyone that information. I think a few other notes and then I’ll close is how can allies outside of college connect with or support organizing and I think reaching out to if you first of all, if you’re connecting with the local colleges and community colleges, in your area, and if you have a relationship with someone there already, ask if there is a disability student run organization and if there is not, if you are a disabled leader in the community you want to connect with the young people I would strongly still have you connect with the other social justs related organizations or minority specific organizations at those colleges because they’re going to be people with disabilities within those orgs whether or not it is a disability specific organization. Why is college campus organizing important to the disability community or disability rights movement? I mean look at our history. Ed Roberts, rolling quads, if you look at the history of the independent living rights movement it came in college students. I do think that it is important to note around the question of how do college demographics compare with the mainstream disability rights movement. Those who are attending any type of university or college are there it is a privilege to be there. So you’ll look at the dream graphic of AU. For example, it was a predominantly white institution. If you look at our population, the demographics of our community, nationwide, there is a majority of our community members may not have the access to college or may or, you know, the majority there is disproportionate amount of students with disabilities that are going to community colleges. And so I guess I will stop there.
>> Jessica: Thank you, Allie. Lots of really good ideas for us to think about. And thank you to all four of our speakers for presenting such important information and ideas. And now for making sure that we have time for dialogue. So we can go ahead and open it up. Remember if you muted your phone hit star six to unmute and feel free to go ahead with a question or comment. If the speakers also have questions for each other, feel free.
>> Allie: I just wanted to I forgot the most important part of my whole little speech was the fact that I’m going to be very honest with you because I think it is really important to do so and that after I Disability Rights Coalition is no longer active. I think that is a really powerful point to make because it was really hard to create a sustainability organization when students still don’t want to be out. And don’t see disability as a social justice issue. I will say that there was substantial cultural shift at AU around disability being a part of the campus diversity but it was very, very hard to create a sustainable model and that was something that I really struggled with. It resulted today and it being inactive and it is really it is taking a really long time for me to like I guess acknowledge the failure in that but it also I think speaks to a larger issue of needing to create just a sustainable model and something that is more than just the token individual with a disability who is leading this organization which to be honest it was me and that is not enough. It is not about me. So I just wanted to be really up front about that.
>> Maddy: I had sort of an experience where I was kind of like the one like you were, Allie and I went abroad and it just like fell apart. So that was but I guess I was lucky because that was the spring of my junior year that I was abroad. When I came back for my senior year, like the entire year I was focusing on who was going to take over next year. And then who that was that was something because I was focusing because I had realized if I don’t focus really on sustainability then it was just going to disappear when I graduated. But it is really hard because often disabled students have so many burdens on them as far as like just exiting as a college student with a disability with be really tough. So you know there have been cases where like people who are on leadership to do drop out. Just to take care of themselves. Some people had to take leaves of absence and that is definitely tough. Talking about how to create sustainable organizations is really important. And I just feel like, I mean, our group we got lucky because of there were a few people who wanted to take over and, so, that is sort of but I feel like if not for like those couple of people then the organization wouldn’t have continued on. That is tough, you know, and then also that puts a lot of pressure on the individuals who are in charge of it and then you do feel like, well, if I can’t do this for a certain amount of time because I’m having like my own stuff going on it will fall apart. I don’t know. I would be interested in other people’s thoughts about how to create something that is not just relying on one person or on a couple of individuals.
>> Reba: I’m glad that you asked that question because I know that with the group that I started again I started it my practicum years that was years ago and pretty much starting in February my whole concern became getting the group getting people to getting the group official recognition as students and that would be getting people to volunteer as officers and I admit there was certainly a high level of anxiety that comes in there because it is also it is sort of giving up your baby in many ways. And
>> Maddy: Being supportive and certainly not letting your own anxiety about that take over because it is not a group just I had to step back and say this is not just my group but this is everybody’s group and that had to
>> Female. I had some concerns. I was coming out of the school of social work and I was one of two maybe three students with a disability in the graduate level and school social work and a lot of our other students were coming from other departments, engineering, Department of Rehab. And I was beginning to get concerned that we might lose some of our focuses on a broader social justice theme. I was and I admit I lost a little bit of sleep over it. I remember just sitting back one day in one of our meetings and letting somebody letting the group talk and one of the people who ended up getting on the board this wonderful committee group. That would help build in sustainability so that it really helped to direct people in an organized fashion so that people could work on projects that they cared about but so that the group wouldn’t necessarily be lopsided in its focus and I was very, very proud of them.
>> Jessica: In the conversation about I think Maddy pointed out that it would be great for student organizations to have more resources available. I wonder if anyone knows about I think it was called the national disabled students network. There was some kind of national organization of student groups that I believe [NAME] started in Chicago. Anybody know any more about that?
>> Allie: I think that was called the national disabled students union. But I have not heard like I I have not heard anything about it. I’m actually looking it up right now. But, yeah, I haven’t heard. But I know that Saratrano (sp) started it. I have to like thank Maddy for her initiative in creating the FaceBook group which is on which is on FaceBook and is just starting to add folks who we are wear of who are doing disability organizing on college campuses but I think that they’re you know, they’re putting folk’s heads together and thinking about a more strategic a strategic plan on how we can leverage something like this FaceBook group because we I mean I don’t even know I don’t even know. There is no list that I’m aware of, of student organizations out there. Which for at least a work that I do even though I’m no longer a student, it would be so incredibly helpful for my work specifically because I support internship programs for students with disabilities to have that list because I think this relates to also what is going on, on campuses around disabilities. Because what is happening it at least from organizations that are trying to seek out students with disabilities. And excuse me if this is like rubs folks the wrong way. Because disability support offices are not often the best route of getting two students with disabilities. Other things besides it and some schools noted do not have disability offices and you can tell me if I’m wrong. I think that is what you said. So having like a central hub for even naming the orgs that exist and contact folks but the other thing and I have done a lot of thinking around this. A lot of things a lot of it is also so much turn over students are always changing leadership, always changing and to develop collective accountability around a model of information collecting would be difficult I think it I’d is definitely possible because other types of communities do this around student campus organizing. Those are some thoughts that have definitely been on my mind as I’ve thought about this topic.
>> Diane: I was just going to say, I was in Chicago when NBSU (sp) was pretty active and the it was actually very involved in the original referred disability pride parade that was strong and then the organization it I know it had a leader and I’m blanking on the guy’s name. Last name was Paul. He was in Florida. But I don’t know what happened to it. It has made me think though I mean there was a real benefit to sort of having a national name and potential in that way. One thing that crossed my mind is lately of course on social media you see a lot of the youth owned group or yo and they have a very affective chapter here in Rochester where I am and I know that they have pretty active people in California and I’m not sure what else. But I wonder if there is potential through but
>> Allie: Can you repeat the name you said. I just didn’t hear you.
>> Diane: It is youth OWN. And it is them, too. I’m just wondering if the I talked to a couple of the members who are definitely looking at college and they have got some type of a national. They are really getting busy. I don’t know, just a thought. Also, it would be great it would be great if all of you guys that are doing this work could go attend society for disabilities and studies and get them to wake up again.
>> Female: I used to be an activist. I’m talking 20 years ago. You don’t see that as much any more. In fact I hear people that are connected to them complaining that now they don’t like activism and they think it is bad. And that
>> Maddy: I went to [NAME] and it was my first time and they had an undergrad panel which was pretty cool for undergrad research. So that was not really and I mean a lot of people that presented were involved with activism on their campuses. But it was not like directed towards activism.
>> This is [NAME] can you hear me?
>> Jessica: Yes, go ahead.
>> Female: From Chicago. I live only a few blocks, you know, within walking a wheelchair distance from where I live and have my home offices. Loyal university. A large university. My neighborhood has many people that are disabled. The students at that particular college it is haring to them to participant in anything taken to go disability issues. Not just because they don’t have an organizer on campus but they want to be paid for whatever volunteer work they do so they tend to go to agencies that can pay them or for which there is a grant, you know, to provide a stie pin. The groups that I see doing more organizing in terms of students are northeastern Illinois university and of course University of Illinois of Chicago. But again, the student finds that they have too much homework. They have this and this to do and they don’t get involved. I try to get them to do research but I end up doing it myself which I don’t want to do or calling on universities across the country to get the research. I think one of the key things missing is the person sustainability. You find students who organize just for one event. And then they disappear. Or they move on. Or, you know, there is no funds available to cover food, transportation, et cetera. That would make it more appealing to the students. Or some of them can get credit but only for specialized things. Such as research and people that have a specific disability and that is not what my organization is about. The medical model it is not something that we that we address in particular. I don’t know what other people’s feelings are.
>> Delores: If I could jump in quickly. I believe what Diane was referring to is organizing, [NAME] out in California but correct me if I’m wrong, Diane, but that is a program of
>> Cart Captioner: Hard to hear her.
>> Delores: I don’t think it is corrected on a National Level but I believe it is a really good starting point for youth organizations that is happening in the state. I wanted to throw that out there. I think there was a reference to that.
>> Allie: Can I just have I don’t know if it is my hearing but could someone repeat the national the not YO but the other one. What is it called?
>> Delores: Youth own, OWN.
>> Allie. For. Some reason that is not okay. Is that a disability specific group?
>> Jessica: Diane, it would be great if you could put some information about that on the FaceBook site maybe so that people can go on there and see what the name is and read about what it is if people want to correct.
>> Diane: I’ll talk with Stephanie about it because CDR has a chapter connected to it and, yeah. We’ll follow up.
>> Stephanie: I’m not sure if it is disability specific around like nationally but I do know that our Rochester chapter is disability specific. But I could double check on beyond Rochester.
>> Female: Got it.
>> Jessica: Actually I have a quick comment and a question. Just on the issue of sustaining groups and I think it is something about the nature of college groups in general that things kind of come and go and I think some of the there is a lot of challenges that our speakers pointed out about keeping disability student groups going in particular. It is really hard. It seems like a reminder to me about all of us in community groups to be continuing to kind of reach out and see if there are students that want to get things started could use any support or resources to be able to do that. I don’t know that I have in my head exactly how we do that but it seems like an important role that we could be playing. And then my question was actually, I don’t know, it was based on something Maddy was saying about a lot of the students that you worked with having mental health disabilities or chronic health disabilities. And that you pointed out that is really different from the way the mainstream disability rights movement looks. And I guess I’m just wondering if you or others can elaborate more on kind of what like how we can learn from that. You know, in in the efforts to actually move the disability rights movement and not have it kind of look so similar to how it has how can we learn from what is happening on college campuses?
>> Maddy: Sure. And I think that the fact that so many I mean if you look at sort of the population of disabled students the top three types of disabilities are learning disabilities, mental health disabilities and chronic health disabilities. We have not had as many people with learning disabilities involved in our organization but I think especially for things like mental health disabilities and chronic health disabilities, people often feel isolated from the mainstream disability community because I guess they feel like it sort of is funny because because sometimes there is so much like disability pride I guess in the mainstream disability community they feel like people feel conflicted in their own disabilities. I’m just speak for myself. I have a chronic health disability and at first I was not sure that I fit into the mainstream disability community because I felt like well, you know, I really love this community but I you know, I’m not sure how I feel on the question of like a cure or something like that. I also was getting sort of signals from people that like, you know, knives a workshop when somebody said disabled folks are not sick folks. I thought well, I am a sick person. So I think that people feel like at least in the group I was part of that the mainstream disability community is not necessarily addressing their concerns and there is I mean, you know, there is this long I guess a bias in the mainstream disability community saying at least like, you know, at least we’re not sick. At least our brains were okay. Which like I it isolates a lot of people who are sick or who have, you know, mental illnesses. And I guess I would hope that the mainstream disability could learn from these college students and sort of open up more and be more I guess attentive to the needs of people with different types of disabilities. Yeah, I think that is important. I think that could be why a lot of people who are really into organizing on college campuses are not necessarily connecting with the organizing that is going on outside of college campuses because they feel like it is not necessarily speaking to what is important to them.
>> Allie: I couldn’t agree more as just from observation with what Maddy said. I think around just another quick note around I guess awareness of the diversity of disability, I think that starts I look at least many of the many of the catalysts for young people learning about disability is their disability history. A lot of states have disability history links. A lot of organizing happens around educating disability history and something I really struggled with and this in no way discounts the folks who in our movement as I said before like Ed Roberts who there are a lost folks we learn about who have done amazing work but who are people with physical disabilities. I think. I think that there can be a change of narrative if, you know, if programs that are teaching disability history include what has happened historically for members of our community with chronic illness. And the last this last summer at YLF it included the psychiatric movement from the history presentation. Even touching on those things begins to break this assumption that the disability community only looked a certain way. And in a sense when we look at our liter and we look at what we learn when we talk about disability history that, is what at least as a young person that is what I learned. You dig deeper and you learn of the diversity of disability and you learn that there are other facets of our history that should be taught. So looking at how we can implement, include other parts of our community and in work that we’re already doing in terms of naming what existed and who is fought before us.
>> Jessica: This is our last comment unfortunately because we’re at the end of the hour. Go ahead, Delores.
>> Delores: I wanted to ask just a basic one point or one [off mic] on [off mic] other folks to do as organizing
>> Cart Captioner: I’m sorry. She is very hard to hear.
>> Jessica: Maybe one person can give a quick response and then we can take that one to FaceBook or listserv. The question how to find students. Basic community organizing question how do you want students with disability involved. Does one person want to take a quick stab at that?
>> Female: Go ahead.
>> Reba: This is really quick. I will say one going through the Disability Resource Center may not necessarily be the easiest. I think that is said here. Sometimes usually it is targeting the departments that statistically get students with disabilities more often such as vocational rehabilitation training. Skills teaching. And then the old, old, old school organizing trick of each person, tell a friend and try to bring two with you.
>> Jessica: Thank you for that. I do hope we can continue that question. That is an important one. With respect to everybody’s time and I know our captioner needs to get off to end the call. A huge thank you to our speakers for sharing such wonderful information and insight. Especially on short notice. Thank you for that. And to all of our participants for getting on. Thank you for the good questions and conversation. Thank you, to our captioner for making this call accessible. We hope people will continue the conversation again on FaceBook and the Organizer’s Forum and listserv on Yahoo! group. We have these calls always the first not the first but always on the third Tuesday of the month at the same time. So our next call will be Tuesday November 18th and that will be an issue based call. I don’t believe the topic has been decided yet. The call after that will be Tuesday December 16th. And that will be on LGBTQ and disability issues. So you have suggestions for speakers on that or specific questions we should tackle please let me know. Diane, do you know the November topic?
>> Diane: No, we don’t have that determined yet.
>> Jessica: We’ll send that out as soon as we know. That covers it. Thanks again to everybody. Have a great day.
>> Cart Captioner: Thank you.
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