Leave it to the Ivy Leaguers to come up with one of the more innovative ways to observe National Disability Employment Awareness Month (NDEAM) that we’ve come across thus far. This Yale Daily News article by Payal Marathe and Julia Zorthian documents how the university’s community is forwarding the conversation about accessibility and accommodation on the New Haven, Connecticut, campus.
Yale’s population of students with disabilities is at an historical high. According to the director of Resource Office on Disabilities, Judy York, four times as many students at the university identify as having a disability than a decade ago. She makes a great point about how accessibility of academic spaces is only part of the equation when it comes to inclusion. Part of the Yale’s goal with its planned activities and exhibitions is that student groups take accommodation into account when they hold meetings or social functions so that students with disabilities can participate.
Technology is making classrooms and work places more accessible to people with disabilities of all types and the numbers are only going to rise as the breadth of opportunity expands for these individuals. Marathe and Zorthian outline of Yale’s plans for October genuinely evoke the goal of “personalizing” the conversation about disabilities, as stated by diversity chief, Deborah Stanley-McAulay:
… [E]xhibitions in buildings and courtyards will display alternative keyboards, foot pedals, crutches, magnifying glasses and other devices used by disabled persons living on campus. Also, a van will be parked outside of Sterling Memorial Library that students can attempt to board in a wheelchair to gain an understanding the daily difficulties disabled students encounter.
We spent some time last winter looking at the value of post-secondary education programs for both students with and without disabilities. With a major goal of NDEAM being putting an employer’s focus on what a job candidate can do, rather than what they cannot, the opportunity for social and academic interaction with these individuals can make a big difference later on, when someone is in a managerial position and evaluating applicants.
Yale is not one of the 27 institutions participating in the federally funded Transition and Postsecondary Program for Students with Intellectual Disabilities (TPSID) that is helping these students matriculate into higher education while generating quantitative data about which methods lead to better educational outcomes, especially with regards to employment opportunities. (Nor are any Massachusetts’ colleges or universities. Although, the Institute for Community Inclusion at University of Massachusetts-Boston received a separate grant for developing a coordination and support center for TPSID participants.) But the university’s efforts will certainly make life matter more for the individuals with disabilities who are enrolled and employed there both now and in the future.
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Image by Marc Smith.