March 2008
The articles published in the ALERT represent the opinions of the authors and are not an endorsement by the Association or necessarily representative of the views of the Association.
- From the President
- From the Editor
- Reframing Disability - Reframing our Disability Perspective: A Glance at Disability Studies
- E-Mentoring Opportunity for Students Interested in Design
- Professional Development Calendar
- AHEAD Undertakes Study on the State of Physical Education and Sports Opportunities for Individuals with Disabilities
- Exploring Access and Foreignness in Study Abroad
- In Memory of Betty Bacon; Advocate, Friend and Colleague
- In Memory of Don Anderson, Director of Access Services at Eastern Michigan University
- US / Costa Rica Disability Rights and Leadership Exchange Program Accepting Applications
- Travelers with Purpose' Photo Contest 2008
- Invitation and Call for Abstracts: Pathways Conference 9: Sofitel, Melbourne, Australia
From the President
Registration materials for AHEAD 2008, AHEAD’s annual international conference in Reno, Nevada July 15-19 are out. I want to remind you of some exciting changes that will enhance this year’s conference.
THE PROGRAM:
The theme for AHEAD 2008, “Multiple Intersections”, emphasizes our recognition that campuses, and the larger society beyond, become inclusive or exclusive/disabling or usable based on the design of the environments with which disabled individuals intersect. Students with disabilities intersect with curricular, policy, technological, physical, and attitudinal environments on a daily basis. Selected concurrent and poster presentations explore these intersections and consider how service professionals, as allies to students with disabilities, can impact the design of underlying systems to create inclusive and sustainable campuses.
We have designed ten specific topical “tracks” and asked ten respected AHEAD members to each create a strand of concurrent sessions that explore one of the areas of ‘intersection’. The tracks were designed to be inclusive of a wide variety of disability service work, to encourage innovation, and push us to consider new approaches. As I’ve had the opportunity to review the sessions, I am impressed with the quality of the accepted proposals and with the work of the track coordinators. I think you will be too. Thanks to the following people for their work in accepting and designing concurrent sessions that provide a comprehensive look at the following ‘intersections’:
The intersection between students with disabilities and disability service centers, Barbara Blacklock and Betty Benson:
Best practices and innovation in disability service office policies, procedures and programming that support student identity development, campus-wide inclusion of disability, and sustainable/inclusive access.
The intersection between higher education and transition, Mary Helen Walker:
Best practice and innovative programming around both transition from secondary education and transition to the world of work.
The intersection between disability and technology, Ron Stewart:
With the benefit of a hands-on computer lab to support learning, presenters will provide information on a variety of technological issues that support both students with disabilities and service offices.
The intersection between disability and graduate/professional programs, Jane Thierfeld Brown and Carol DeSouza:
Best practices and innovative approaches to addressing the myriad of issues that confront graduate and professional students, including unique student teaching, internships, externships, residencies, research, and high stakes testing experiences.
The intersection between disability and the academic curriculum, Christopher Lanterman:
Academic policies, course design, assessment strategies, and instructor attitudes are among the issues that pose possible barriers and require accommodation. Concurrent sessions will address access to the full range of curricular offerings through innovative service delivery, faculty development, collaboration, and research.
The intersection between disability and the co-curriculum, Mike Shuttic:
Full access to a higher education experience does not end in the classroom; colleges and universities offer a full range of co-curricular programming that enhances students’ overall experience.
The intersection between disability and the policy environment, Mary Culkin:
Academic policies and institutional procedures, while guiding the institution’s operations, also establish a welcoming environment or cause barriers to full participation. Concurrent sessions will examine institutional systems, theory and practice in organization change, and models for innovative policy development.
The intersection between the disability service professional and legal issues, Susie Rood:
Legal standards provide the foundation for assuring access. Updates on the current legal landscape will keep us up-to-date on case law and policy over the last year, and international approaches will add new perspectives for maximizing meaningful access.
The intersection between disability and diversity, Joyce Knight:
How does disability intersect with other personal characteristics such as race/ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, language, and religion? What personal and professional competencies do those working in disability services need to assure successful intersections with students who identify with groups that are marginalized? Does identifying disability as an aspect of diversity empower our agenda on campus?
The intersection between higher education and external forces, Sue Kroeger:
Higher education is impacted by the social, economic, and political world around it and, in turn, has the opportunity to influence how disability and access are viewed by the larger society. Presentations will examine these intersections and provide the opportunity to explore their consequences.
Conference attendees may choose to explore a specific track in depth by attending all sessions under that heading or to get a taste for a variety of concepts by selecting sessions in a multitude of topical tracks.
CONFERENCE PLANNING:
This year AHEAD is going green!! In lieu of receiving paper handouts onsite at the conference, attendees will access handout and presentation support literature in advance via Internet download. Beginning no later than two weeks prior to the conference, all registered conference attendees can login to download materials from as many sessions as they would like, in the format of their choice.
While providing a tremendous benefit in ease of access for each conference participant, this approach also greatly reduces the burden on presenters and the environment. Braille, e-text or large print options can be personalized and the extra copies presenters have historically carried to the conference will not go wasted.
This change is going to require earlier preparation of presentation materials by all presenters… we very much appreciate your attention to this change and hope you appreciate the dual benefits AHEAD will realize with this new system.
We are looking forward to the AHEAD 2008 as a time for enriching professional growth and camaraderie! We hope your plans include attendance!
Spring is finally here! Summer, and the 2008 AHEAD Conference are right around the corner. AHEAD President Carol Funckes writes of the conference, “The theme for AHEAD 2008, “Multiple Intersections”, emphasizes our recognition that campuses, and the larger society beyond, become inclusive or exclusive/disabling or usable based on the design of the environments with which disabled individuals intersect.”
In this issue numerous opportunities touch on this theme. We also remember several individuals whose lives had and will continue to have an impact on many of us. Read about the re-launch of Access to Design Professions E-Mentoring Program from Adaptive Environments / Institute for Human Centered Design, a great opportunity for students interested in design. Sienna, Italy, anyone? Don’t miss “Exploring Access and Foreignness in Study Abroad,” about an Internship Program at the Siena School for Liberal Arts aimed at understanding the barriers to full participation for differently abled individuals. This issue also includes information on a photo contest sponsored by Mobility International USA and a Disability Rights / Leadership Exchange program in Costa Rica, as well as an article in the “Reframing Disability” series on shaping disability service delivery using a Disability Studies perspective.
highlights the work of several outstanding individuals and remembers a great champion for the rights of people with disabilities, Dr. Frank G. Bowe.
I hope you enjoy these articles and more in this issue of ALERT. Please keep sending your contributions to alvaro@email.unc.edu.
Sincerely,
ALvaro Gomez
ALERT Editor
Reframing Disability - Reframing our Disability Perspective: A Glance at Disability Studies
Alberto Guzman
University of Illinois at Chicago
I challenge you to ask yourself: “What does Disability Studies have to offer to the profession of disability service in Higher Education?”
Disability Studies is an emerging discipline which foci on the study of the phenomenon from an angle that has been neglected by academicians, policy makers, and service providers, as well as some people with disabilities. I did not become aware of Disability Studies until five years after the onset of my visual disability as I was waiting to meet with my access consultant. I am still learning what Disability Studies is; and the more I learn the more fascinated I become with its implications for Higher Education. Madaus (2000), tell us that examples of disability services in higher education date back to the late 1800’s. However, it was not until the late 1990s that construction of theories for best practices started to emerge, thanks to the efforts of the Association of Higher Education and Disability (AHEAD) and affiliated researchers.
Now that the process of thinking, questioning and challenging the methodology of providing access for students with disabilities has been initiated, how can the profession benefit from what disability theorists have to offer? Disability Studies as a discipline, “represents the social and material predicament of disabled persons as a matter of inclusion, recognition, and social change. … {it} attends to the environmental resistance to inclusion – attitudes and the enforcement of normative expectations upon bodies – as opposed to individual adjustments (Snyder, 2001).” Although Disability Studies is a much broader concept, the selected quote is perfect for the Higher Education Disability Services context, since it serves as a challenge to the dominant view: that disability resides within the individual. In regards to this challenge, one can start by thinking about ones approach to services and what guides them. Ask yourself; when I think of my vocation and my passion regarding access for students with disabilities; do I think and practice inclusion, recognition and social change? What strategies do I employ in the performance of my daily duties that promote inclusion, recognition and change?
Cognizant of the history of disability services within the Higher Education arena, one is aware that most programs started in response to forces, external to postsecondary education, such as legislation and social movements (Madaus, 2000). Moreover, today’s disability service delivery in the United States is correlated with providers’ needs of meeting the requirements of laws such as Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and/or the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, both of which individualized disability in their definition. Despite the requirements of these laws and others, there is no conflict between the legislators' intention of providing services for people with disabilities and what Disability Studies scholars propose in regards to inclusion, recognition and social change. Although laws like Section 504 and ADA establish minimums, they do not define maximums. This open ended mandate has allowed providers vested in reframing how disability has been historically portrayed, to construct new approaches to services that align with the ideas of disability scholars. These disability service providers are leaders, promoting outside the box thinking. Their methods balance individualized adjustments with efforts on inclusion, recognition and social change.
Shaping disability service delivery using a Disability Studies perspective will help current service providers to identify the flaws on exclusively providing individualized adjustments. Although in some cases, provider’s will lack the support, tools and/or resources to provide other than individual accommodations, it is important to understand that in many situations complying with required minimums promotes segregation, limited participation and unequal access of student with disabilities and therefore, maintains a discriminatory environment which conflicts with the spirit of the ADA. The problem with individualized adjustments/accommodations is that they reinforce the individual/medical notion that disability resides with the individual and as such society is not an accomplice to disabled people’s marginalization. Contrary, disability studies scholars argue that society does not account for the needs of all its citizens (Zola, 1989). The manner in which our society discriminates against people with disabilities varies. Some examples provided by Disability Studies thinkers include: inaccessibility in the built environment, "disincentives" in public policies, domination of disabled people by bureaucrats and professionals, prejudice in the culture, and institutionalized discrimination (Longmore, 2003); bias, prejudice, segregation, and discrimination (Hahn, 1987) ; failure to provide appropriate services and adequately ensure the needs of disabled people (Oliver, 1996) ; and the fit of such im¬pairments with the social, attitudinal, architectural, medical, eco¬nomic, and political environment (Zola, 1989).
Although as a professional one can think of examples for all these forms of discrimination, let’s focus our attention on the three issues mentioned earlier:
Inclusion – as disability service providers it is important that we ensure that when ever possible, students with disabilities are included instead of just being accommodated. Examples of this can be observed in the planning, construction and implementation of new physical structures, including laboratories as well as programs of distant learning. In this day an age, with the technical knowledge available, is there any reason for institutions of higher learning to develop a distance learning curriculum that is not accessible to the largest number of students possible, knowing that these mediums could be particularly beneficial for students with disabilities? It is also important that service providers examine current practices such as the delivery of note-taking, testing accommodations, etc. and determine which segment of the student population is being left out. Thinking of the institution as a cultural entity, what steps can a service provider take toward delivering services in an inclusive manner?
Recognition – What does a service provider need to recognize about disability? Does one think of disability as a physical or mental impairment or as the consequences of being excluded from society. Disability and other scholars explain this as: recognition that persons with disabilities are a marginalized group (Abberley, 1987; Charlton, 1998; Freire, 1981; Longmore, 2003).
Social change – The two elements listed above are essential to achieve social change. The sought out change is to move toward universally designed environments where all stakeholders value the diversity that persons with disabilities bring to the table and acknowledge that different individuals, with and without disabilities, benefit from environments that maximize the individual’s potential and are useable by the most people possible. Since most students with disabilities are not raised in a home with parents that share the same impairments (Abberley, 1987; Gill, 2001), it might be useful for these students to learn about disability culture and how to identify and work toward the removal of environmental barriers, instead of only focusing on how to compensate for limitations through individualized adjustments.
Disability services without a doubt has seen a tremendous and rapid growth. This growth has germinated from legislative, activist and the efforts of disability service providers, and has resulted in an increase in the number of disabled students enrolled in postsecondary education. Despite all of these achievements, serious work remains to be done. Disability service professionals must learn about and apply a disability studies perspective to the environmental barriers that limit the access and participation of disabled students. An exclusive focus on individual limitations only promotes existing stereotypes of disabled individuals as tragic or inspirational. These stereotypes are extremes that misrepresent the disability experience.
March 2008 Calendar
Professional Development. Take advantage of these upcoming events, conferences, and other opportunities to increase and share your knowledge.
Calls for Presentations and Articles
ALERT submission and publication dates:
The ALERT is now being published every 2-3 months. Here is the schedule for
Submissions Due:
May 16, 2008
May 30, 2008
Publication Date:
May 30, 2008
August 18, 2008
September 1, 2008
Please keeps those articles coming!
AHEAD and Affiliate Events
Thursday, April 3, 2008
8:30 AM – 5:00 PM
Equity in the Medical Professions
Dispelling Myths – Creating Opportunities
The George Washington University
City View Room, 1957 E Street, NW Washington D.C. 20052
This day long symposium is designed to bring together faculty, administrators, and other medical personnel engaged with the growing number of students with disabilities enrolled in medical dental and physician assistant programs. Disability experts and practicing physicians with disabilities will provide theoretical legal and practical perspectives surrounding inclusion in the classroom, the clinic, and beyond. This forum will provide opportunities for collegial sharing, direct application, and demonstrations of assistive technologies. For more information about the symposium, call (202) 994-8250, email dss@gwu.edu, or visit (page no longer available.)
Presenters:
Noel Gregg, PH.D.
Distinguished Research Professor at The University
of Georgia. Director of the University of Georgia
Regents' Center for Learning Disorders and Research
Chair for the Georgia Alternative Media Access Center
Jo Anne Simon, J.D.
Attorney in private practice in Brooklyn, New York
and Adjunct Assistant Professor at Fordham
University School of law
Martha Smith, M.A.
Director of the Office for Student Access,
Academic & Student Affairs at Oregon Health &
Science University
Sponsored by The George Washington University Official Disability Support Services with the support of Arent Fox, the Association on Higher Education and Disability and The George Washington School of Medicine and Health Sciences
April 22 and 23, 2008
The Eighth Annual Multiple Perspectives on Access, Inclusion & Disability: Looking Back & Thinking Ahead
Blackwell Hotel Conference Center; The Ohio State University
"Congress acknowledged that society's accumulated myths and fears about disability and disease are as handicapping as are the physical limitations that flow from actual impairment."
Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. 480 U.S. 284
The Eighth Annual Multiple Perspectives conference continues the university's efforts to bring together a diverse audience to explore disability as both an individual experience and social reality that cuts across typical divisions of education & employment; scholarship & service; business & government; race, gender & ethnicity.
Two decades ago Congress investigated the status of individuals with disabilities in society. Their findings led to the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990. This year's theme "Looking Back and Thinking Ahead" is meant to encourage the consideration of methods and programs from fresh perspectives & determine how relevant those findings are today.
More details on the program & on-line registration will be available soon. Please check our website at: http://ada.osu.edu for the most recent information.
May 31-June 2, 2007
Society for Disability Studies 20th Annual Conference "Disability & Disability Studies: Works in Progress"
Seattle
http://www.uic.edu/orgs/sds/annualmeetings.html
2007 marks the 25th year of the Society for Disability Studies, and the field has changed dramatically over the last quarter century. As Disability Studies continues to grow, increasing its presence in university departments, cultural criticism, and art and knowledge production, SDS wants to take this anniversary opportunity to reevaluate the discipline and reflect on the state of the field. Current Disability Studies scholarship differs from much of that which precedes it, most notably in its efforts to be more inclusive, offering a more complex conception of what constitutes “disability.” Rather than remaining rooted in a particular cultural moment or ideological understanding, Disability Studies is a work in progress.
In order to encourage this kind of self-reflection, both as a field and an organization, this year's conference addresses the idea of “works in progress”.
July 14 – 19, 2008
31st Annual AHEAD Conference, 2008: Multiple Intersections
The Grand Sierra Resort, Reno, Nevada USA
E-Mentoring Opportunity for Students Interested in Design: Access to Design Professions E Mentoring Program
(Adaptive Environments / Institute for Human - Centered
Design)
Adaptive Environments/Institute for Human-Centered Design is re-launching the Access to Design Professions E Mentoring Program. This Program finds mentors for students with disabilities who have graduated from high school who are interested in careers in design. They might want to learn about design as a career, or where to study in a post-secondary design education program. They may already be enrolled in a design program and want the advice of a professional designer, or they might already be working as entry level designers and want some professional mentoring. We have a new program brochure and expanded informational resources available. For more information, see http://www.accesstodesign.org. Ruth Lusher, the new E-Mentoring Program Coordinator can be reached at rlusher@adaptiveEnvironments.org.
Access to Design Professions is funded in part by the National Endowment for the Arts. The project was developed as a living memorial in honor of the late Ron Mace, FAIA. Ron was the consummate champion for accessible and universal design. The project encourages and supports people with disabilities to become designers. We believe that they will use their personal experience of disability to contribute to great universal design, as did Ron Mace. The current lack of designers with disabilities perpetuates the practice of design that isolates, excludes and stigmatizes people with disabilities. See http://www.careersindesign.org for additional resources for disabled students seeking information about design careers.
Elaione Ostroff, Hon. AIA
elaine@ostroff.org
AHEAD Undertakes Study on the State of Physical Education and Sports Opportunities for Individuals with Disabilities
AHEAD has joined more than 50 organizations supporting BlazeSports America and the Women’s Sports Foundation in urging the Government Accounting Office to create a study concerning physical education and sport opportunities for individuals with disabilities in educational institutions. Since the National Collegiate Athletic Association and the National Federation of State High School Associations do not offer any officially sanctioned programs for athletes with disabilities, comprehensive, accurate data on the level of participation in physical education and sport for students with disabilities is difficult to determine.
AHEAD surveyed its members in 2007 in an attempt to determine what opportunities were available athletically and recreationally for students with disabilities. While the results of that survey showed that many colleges and universities provided opportunities (mostly at the recreation level), the great majority of respondents indicated that they felt that their institutions did not do enough. The results of the AHEAD survey have been shared with the NCAA, BlazeSports America, and the Women’s Sports Foundation, and these results have helped make the case for needing a more comprehensive study.
Exploring Access and Foreignness in Study Abroad: An Internship Program aimed at understanding the barriers to full participation for differently abled individuals.
Miriam Grottanelli de Santi
Director
Siena School for Liberal Arts
Siena, Italy
I have worked for eight and a half years as Director of a Study Abroad Program that I founded in Siena, Italy. My objective as director of a program of this kind, is to provide a way for my students to encounter foreignness; to help them find within themselves the instruments to deal with the unfamiliar constructively. I want my students to return home with the knowledge that if you approach difference with an alert – yet humble – curiosity, the smallest detail of one’s experience can expand to become full of potential new adventures, and knowing that the path to knowledge is the most enjoyable journey of all.
Like many other Study Abroad programs, we offer a variety of courses in the Arts and Humanities. We cater to small numbers of students and I carefully choose all my teachers not only in terms of their qualifications, but also for what they – as individuals with their own experience of the place we want to introduce to our students – can bring to the School as a whole.
From my experience it seems that more and more students look for meaningful contact with and within the community abroad, but that they are less and less capable of finding their own path towards that contact. I believe this is at least in part due to the false feeling of ‘connectedness’ given them by all the latest technological tools, such as skype, ichat, aim etc. In some ways, everything is within their reach and as a result can seem familiar, but at the same time they are not really being exposed to any of it. In addition, there seems to be an expectation that the role of teachers is to make even more experiences reachable, while taking care not to expose the students to their own vulnerability.
For these reasons at the Siena School we have come to believe that it is essential to place students in both conventional and unconventional learning settings, so as somehow to encourage a shift in perspective and open the student up to a richer experience ‘abroad’. By an unconventional setting I mean one which is not a classroom but which has similar academic requirements, with one very significant difference. As in a classroom, the students need to observe and listen, and have the capacity to discuss and present issues, but in our program’s unique settings, it is the student’s individual experience of a situation that supplies the connecting link between a text-book or lecture and the class discussion – something the conventional classroom cannot always provide. We want our students to learn that education – or at least the small part in their education which studying abroad represents – is about listening with an informed ear, before it is about asserting oneself.
Where, until recently, we had selected our unconventional learning settings in a fairly broad way – centers for immigrants, for senior citizens, for psychiatric patients – we are now focusing more specifically on two kinds of diversity: deafness and motor disability.
We have worked with the deaf community in Siena for a couple of years now through our course in Education and Linguistics. Students learn Italian Sign Language and engage directly with issues of current deaf education and deaf culture, by working on a project that is either directly useful to the deaf community or brings visibility to issues that concern them.
In Fall 2008 we are also launching an Internship Program that will look at access and full participation in the life of our community. With the focus on motor disability, we aim to guide our students towards an understanding of a life situation totally “foreign” to their own, while they themselves are already experiencing their own form of foreignness as young Americans abroad. From that understanding, and using their own talents, our students will produce work that can publicly highlight obstacles to access and full participation in the community, and suggest means of overcoming these obstacles. This Internship is not limited to students majoring in Special Education, but aims to appeal to individuals in any discipline, interested in exploring a foreign country through the lens of diversity, and motivated enough to ‘put themselves out there’ in pursuit of this interest.
The Program is divided into the following three stages:
Stage 1: students will attend a series of lectures given by guest speakers, covering a variety of issues associated with the running of non-profit organizations in Italy, such as the relationship between the state and such organizations, the legal status of differently-abled individuals in Italy, and the specifics of working in this sector in Siena. All these lectures will be part of our core course in Sociology, brought together in weekly lectures by sociology professor, Rita Sala, who is currently teaching Deaf Studies at the University of Trieste.
Parallel to core course in Sociology, students will enroll in a second course in the Arts, which will be closely integrated with their sociological studies.
Stage 2: students will begin their fieldwork by collecting the life stories of local physically disabled individuals. They will then go on to investigate for themselves the accessibility of different types of locations such as would be needed primarily by locals (banks, post offices, libraries, schools, recreation facilities), or by visitors to the city (tourist sights, hotels, restaurants), or by both (shops, hospitals, public transport). They will do this both together with their Italian interviewees and through simulation of disability (with wheel chairs, sticks, etc.).
All students will be asked to keep a ‘conventional’ journal – to be discussed every week in class – and an ‘unconventional’ journal that will be the specific expression of their chosen arts discipline (photography, painting, drawing, creative writing). The unconventional journal will be supervised weekly by the appropriate course instructor.
Stage 3: Under the supervision of the sociology and arts instructors, all students will work towards their final project which will be presented within the class and also put on display at a public exhibition at the end of the semester.
All data will be collected and made available to future students of the program.
Our hope is that our students will be immersed in a ‘different’ situation, by connecting directly with individuals for whom negotiating difference is routine. They will by asked to produce an individual response to such situations – both a more conventional academic response, and a more personally motivated artistic response – so that they may discover for themselves that any community is simply a collection of different "cultures."
In Memory of Betty Bacon; Advocate, Friend and Colleague
On February 24, 2008, the DSS and disability civil rights communities lost a powerful and tireless advocate, friend, and colleague, Betty Bacon. Betty spent most of her career as Director of the Disabled Student Services office at San Diego State University in California.
Betty was well-known to AHEAD members who were around before about 2000. She was a long-time member who attended most conferences until moving on to become SDSU’s compliance coordinator in 2000. She served on the 1986 Conference Planning Committee as Tours and Transportation Chair. She was often consulted by AHEAD colleagues. Betty was a “go-to” advisor for my AHEAD presidency, primarily because she was a brilliant strategist for promoting disability rights and framing issues. She was one of the very first colleagues I met in our field, in 1977. She was then a member of a California State Task Force that set the philosophical tone and structural basis for future state support of postsecondary services for students with disabilities; their document continues to be a guiding force for California DSS programs.
Following are two pieces from Betty Bacon’s colleagues and friends. First is the announcement and memorial information written by Mary Shojai, Betty’s successor at San Diego State. Then, Past President Catherine Campisi eloquently remembers Betty as friend, colleague, and advocate.
Ward Newmeyer
In Memoriam: Elizabeth (Betty) Bacon
In Memoriam: Elizabeth (Betty) Bacon
It is with deep sadness and a sense of great personal loss that I inform you of the passing of Elizabeth Bacon, former director of Disabled Student Services at San Diego State University. She died February 24, 2008, in San Diego.
Betty received her bachelor's degree in psychology and her master's degree in counseling from San Jose State University. Before arriving at San Diego State University, she worked at the University of California, Berkeley, in Career Planning and Placement as a specialist for internships, job search, and employment access issues for students with disabilities. She joined with other activists in the Bay Area to promote the independent living movement and agitate for civil rights for persons with disabilities. By the time she took her position at San Diego State University, she had been schooled in the strategies necessary for growing the program from about 100 students in 1975 to 1,000 students by 2000, when she took another position at San Diego State University.
During this time, Betty's expertise was sought at local, state and national levels. Betty coordinated the San Diego State University ADA self-evaluation and served as an advisor to the Office of the State Architect on building code revisions. She served on the CSU Chancellor's Office Advisory Committee on Services to Students with Disabilities, and chaired the Directors' group for the system. She was an executive committee member of the California Association of Postsecondary Education and Disability (CAPED) and a member of the national Association on Higher Education and Disability (AHEAD). She was the principle grant writer and a founding board member of the San Diego Community Service Center for the Disabled, now renamed as Access to Independence. She was chosen as a delegate to the 1977 White House Conference on the Handicapped and was a participant in the President's Committee on Employment of the Handicapped.
From 2000 to 2004, she was the disability expert in the Office of Diversity and Equity at San Diego State, investigating discrimination complaints and formulating disability policy for employees and visitors at the university. Betty retired from SDSU in the fall of 2004, but her time and expertise were already in demand from numerous community organizations and government entities. She worked tirelessly, in various capacities, both before and after retirement with SANDAG, CALTRANS, the San Diego City Council, the Citizens Review Committee on ADA for the City of San Diego, San Diego City Disability Services Program, the San Diego County Supervisors' offices, the Accessibility Advisory Committee to the Port of San Diego, the San Diego Disability Action Coalition, What's Next? (a mentoring program for high school students and young adults with disabilities), and many other organizations. At her retirement celebration in November, 2004, members of the disabled community spoke to Betty's unwavering commitment to the rights of individuals with disabilities, both at the university and in the community.
We have lost yet another pioneer in the disability rights movement. Betty was passionate and persistent in her convictions. Those of you who knew her personally will remember that she was a great strategist in the early days of the movement, including blocking inaccessible buses, holding sit-ins, and generally "flashing some chrome" whenever necessary. On our campus alone, we owe it to Betty that so many of our older buildings are accessible. She also did the hard work of growing the program from a very small group of students and staff, with minimal resources, to the large program we work within today. Betty's efforts to remove barriers, both physical and attitudinal, for persons with disabilities have brought lasting results. The SDSU campus and the larger San Diego community are more accessible, thanks to her personal efforts and her ability to mobilize and motivate others.
Sincerely,
Mary Shojai, Director
Student Disability Services and SSS Project for Students w/ Disabilities
San Diego State University
Betty Bacon was a consummate professional and dedicated advocate for all people with disabilities. She developed and ran a highly successful, large and effective Disabled Student Services program and thus was often called on by professional organizations, both CAPED and AHEAD, to provide guidance, leadership, and assistance to others and to the profession as a whole. Betty rarely took the limelight in high profile roles but provided insightful, highly accurate, and current information and assistance in whatever areas she took on. In addition, Betty saw so clearly the need for a connection between a welcoming and accessible campus and a welcoming and accessible community. She was a leader in the San Diego disability community since her arrival there in the mid 1970's. Before there was an independent living center there, everyone was sent to "see Betty Bacon', if you were new in town and needed help. I was one of those people. From our first meeting, began a dear lifelong friendship, close collegial fellowship, and strong advocacy partnership. Betty's charisma and friendliness attracted many to her in such ways and I am only one of the lucky ones she touched closely for over thirty years. San Diego, California, and nationwide, Betty is being mourned and missed. While this is natural, she would want us to use her passing to renew our commitment to a world that welcomes all people, where we know and believe our diversity is our strength, where we care for our planet and its natural beauty, and most of all, we care for each other. In that spirit, we celebrate Betty and make that re-commitment in her name for all she did for thousands of students, people with disabilities, and the profession.
Catherine Campisi
AHEAD President, 1984-1985
Retired Director of the California Department of Rehabilitation
Retired Dean of Student Services, California Community College System
In Memory of Don Anderson, Director of Access Services at Eastern Michigan University
Don Anderson, Eastern Michigan University's director of access services since 2002, died Dec. 25. He was 54.
His life's passion was working for the full inclusion of people with disabilities in all aspects of society. His career involved helping to provide access to higher education for individuals with disabilities.
Anderson, an Ypsilanti resident, received his master's degree in counseling and his bachelor's degree in English, both from Michigan State University.
Before coming to EMU, Anderson was a hearings/privacy officer for Washtenaw Community Health Organization from 2001-2002; director of educational accessiblity services for Wayne State University from 1997-2001; and disability rights and educational coordinator for the Ann Arbor Center for Independent Living from 1992-1997.
Anderson was an active member of the Michigan Association on Higher Education and Disabilities.
Survivors include his father, Harold C. Anderson; his stepmother, Shelby Anderson; a sister, Rebecca Jamros; two sons, Trevor and Andrew Rose-Hamblin; his ex-wife and friend, Michelle Rose-Armstrong; a niece and two nephews.
In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions in his name may be made to either the Episcopal Church of the Incarnation or to EMU, Division of Student Affairs.
Accepting Applications Now! Application Deadline: March 28, 2008
Mobility International USA (MIUSA) is excited to offer a 16-day exchange program to Costa Rica on June 27 - July 12, 2008 with a focus on youth leadership and cross-cultural perspectives on disability rights. Delegates will attend workshops, explore the country, and stay with host families. Participants do not need to know Spanish to apply, but they must be: U.S. Citizens, Ages 18 - 24 (by June 27).
We strive to organize programs that include people with and without disabilities and people from diverse cultural backgrounds. First time travelers with disabilities who are from a cultural minority and of low socioeconomic status are included every year. MIUSA exchange programs are inclusive of people who are Deaf and hard of hearing, or have cognitive, visual, physical, psychiatric, systemic, non-apparent, or other types of disabilities. ASL staff interpreters will be provided by MIUSA for the duration of the program. Materials in alternative formats will be provided for all scheduled program activities. Personal assistant funding may be available to assist participants who need personal assistance during the program.
To learn more about the program and download an application go to:
http://www.miusa.org/exchange/costarica08/index_htm
Thank you,
Jeff McBride
Project Coordinator
National Clearinghouse on Disability and Exchange Mobility International USA
132 E. Broadway, Suite 343
Eugene, Oregon 97401 USA
Tel/TTY: 1+ (541) 343-1284
Fax: 1+ (541) 343-6812
http://www.miusa.org/ncde
The 2008 US/Costa Rica: Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Disability Rights Leadership Exchange Program is funded by the New York Community Trust DeWitt Wallace/Youth Travel Enrichment Fund and administered by Mobility International USA to provide an educational travel opportunity to youth with disabilities from diverse communities.
Travelers with Purpose' Photo Contest
2008:
Deadline March 31, 2008
National Clearinghouse on Disability and Exchange, Mobility International USA (MIUSA) are currently seeking entries for the Travelers with Purpose' Photo Contest 2008, showcasing positive images of and by people with disabilities participating in international educational exchange programs around the world.
Prizes:
1st: Wheeled Backpack with Docking Daypack from Destinations- The Travel Store
2nd: $100 American Airlines Travel Gift Certificate
3rd: Rick Steves' Europe Through the Back Door Travel Publications
Other Prizes: Mobility International USA's Survival Strategies for Going Abroad: A Guide for People with Disabilities publication and Mobility International USA T-shirts.
The first place photograph will be featured on the cover of our full-color calendar and on a screensaver. Second and third place photos, along with ten honorable mention photos, will be featured in the calendar and screensaver. All contest entrants whose photographs are chosen for the calendar will receive a copy of the calendar and screensaver.
For contest rules and guidelines visit:
http://www.miusa.org/ncde/spotlight/photocontest08
Submissions must be postmarked by March 31, 2008
For more information on how people with disabilities can participate in all types of international exchange programs, contact:
National Clearinghouse on Disability and Exchange
Tel/TTY: (541) 343-1284
Fax: (541) 343-6812
Email: clearinghouse@miusa.org
Web: http://www.miusa.org/ncde
The National Clearinghouse on Disability and Exchange provides free information and referral services related to the participation of people with disabilities in international exchange programs. The Clearinghouse is sponsored by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the U.S. Department of State, and is managed by Mobility International USA, which is celebrating its 27th year as a U.S.-based non-profit organization.
Our mailing
address is:
Mobility International USA
132 E. Broadway, Suite 343
Eugene, Oregon 97405 USA
Our telephone/tty:
541-343-1284
Invitation and Call for Abstracts: Pathways Conference 9: Sofitel, Melbourne, Australia (Australian Tertiary Education Network on Disability)
The first Pathways Conference: Post Secondary Education for People with Disabilities was held in Geelong, Victoria in 1991. Since then Pathways has occurred every two years and been hosted in every other State and Territory.
What a journey it has been and what a difference it has made. The participation of students with disabilities in post secondary education is now the norm, rather than the exception, and everyone has benefited. Pathways has played an important part in this process through providing a range of stakeholders with thought provoking content, and opportunities to learn, share, and enjoy each others company.
It is with great pride that Victoria has another opportunity to host this important conference, and we can assure you that it will be worth the trip, whether that involves local, interstate or international travel. We have secured some world renowned key note speakers who offer the promise of paradigm shifting insights into disability and education.
The Conference will also showcase the talents of people with disabilities in the domain of the artistic expression, interweaving entertaining with theoretical content. We hope that you too will contribute to this program and make Pathways 9 a positive experience for all who attend.
Pathways 9 will occur from December 3 to December 5 2008 at the Sofitel Melbourne. Focusing on the student cycle, Pathways 9 will cover topics that span pre-enrolment, transition, orientation, participation, employability, academic requirements and the progression to employment or research higher degrees.
On behalf of the Australian Tertiary Education Network on Disability and the Pathways 9 Organising Committee, it is my pleasure to invite you to be part of Pathways 9, and look forward to seeing you there.
Information about the conference, including dates, preliminary program, keynote speakers and abstract submission details can be found at the Pathways 9 website http://www.pathways9.org
Matthew Brett
Convenor, Pathways 9 Organising Committee
CALL for ABSTRACTS
Abstracts are now invited for oral and poster presentations. If you wish to submit an abstract for consideration by the Program Committee, you must also intend to register for the Conference.
On-line submission is the only method of receipt of abstracts. Abstracts should be a maximum of 250 words. For more information regarding the length and format of abstracts visit http://www.pathways9.org, if you have questions regarding the on-line submission procedure, please email your query to program@icms.com.au
Abstracts in the following categories are requested for submission:
- Disability
- Education
- Training
- Transition
- Participation
- Employment
If you wish to present a paper or poster, please submit your abstract on-line at http://www.pathways9.org no later than Friday, 18 April 2008.
Full details of the conference and submission of abstracts can be found at http://www.pathways9.org
