DREAM Weekly Email: Disability and Higher Education in the News: October 25-31, 2020

DREAM Weekly Email:  Disability and Higher Education in the News: October 25-31, 2020
 
From DREAM: Disability Rights, Education, Activism, and Mentoring
Sponsored by the National Center for College Students with Disabilities and
the Association on Higher Education And Disability (AHEAD)
​
This week’s newsletter and archived newsletters are available at www.DREAMCollegeDisability.org

** WE ARE RE-STARTING THE NEWSLETTER WITH A NEW FORMAT!  VERY HAPPY TO BE BACK – LET US KNOW IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS OR FEEDBACK ([email protected]). **
-------------------------------
Top Five News Items This Week:

• The UK Higher Education Commission has published a new national report: “Arriving at Thriving: learning from Disabled Students to Ensure Access for All.”
• The pandemic is hitting students with disabilities particularly hard, with new national research showing they are more likely to experience financial, mental health, housing, and food insecurity hardships.
• Black and other BIPOC often sacrifice their mental health to do anti-racism work, but colleges are not equipped to recognize and address that.
• A Superior Court in Ontario has ruled that student loan programs must not discriminate against students with disabilities who require more time to complete their studies; DeafBlind student Jasmin Simpson had sued the government, saying financial aid should be tied to completion of a program, not the number of years to complete it.
• Think College at the University of Massachusetts Boston will continue its work as the National Coordinating Center for TPSID grants promoting inclusive higher education for students with intellectual disabilities; TPSID grant recipients have been announced, as well.

 
General News:

• For one week, The Daily Gamecock at the University of South Carolina is “going dark” for everyone at the newspaper to have a mental health break.
• Inclusion and accessibility statements for syllabi are often “exclusive and inaccessible.”
• Mississippi State University’s inclusive ACCESS program will offer online courses starting in the Spring.
• Practices with the ACT test will change after the ACT, Inc company settled a lawsuit accusing them of illegally disclosing students’ disability information to colleges and recruitment agencies.
• Students at UC Berkeley are working to re-establish the Disabled Students’ Residence Program, which provided personal care services in the residence halls for students with significant physical disabilities.
• Brandeis has created a Campus Accessibility Committee for students, staff, and faculty.
• A new “Beloved Community Diversity Narratives Project” is putting large posters around the SUNY-Cortland campus to celebrate diversity, including disability.
• Weber State University is creating policies about recording classes and what to do with the recordings, including related disability accommodations.  This university began the process after a professor realized he had been recorded without permission.
• A new online database of interdisciplinary disability resources is available for students, scholars, and campus libraries.
• Campus’ cultures are fostering the development of eating disorders and disordered eating, but students can get help.
• A Student Affairs professional says support services (like mental health counseling) are needed because students can’t get what they need elsewhere. 
  
  

BIPOC and Diversity Issues:

• Two Board of Trustee members have resigned from Gallaudet after allegations of racism, but administrators say they have been working toward real change.
• Major civil rights organizations have sued President Trump after he issued an executive order barring diversity trainings.  [Higher education contractors and grant recipients are included in the order.]
• The National Hockey League severed ties with University of North Dakota student Mitchell Miller, after learning of his years-long bullying of a Black student with intellectual and developmental disabilities; Miller had been a top draft pick this year.
• Netflix’s Deaf U shows many aspects of diversity, but has received criticism for not featuring Black women, and for not making hearing people think about their privilege.
• UC Berkeley student Sydney Ji talks about their college experience and finding work as a disabled, queer, nonbinary Asian American.
• Black employees on campus are often lacking in safety and health care during this pandemic, and conversations about racial justice and COVID-19 don’t include them. 
• Chinese textbooks still say being gay is a mental illness, but LGBTQ students are fighting back.
• Engineer K. Renee Horton talks about being a Black hard of hearing physicist, and her experiences in college.
• After acknowledging his former participation in a Gallaudet University fraternity using Nazi salutes and dressing like KKK members, Steve Florio, head of the MA Commission for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, was fired.

COVID-19 News:

• COVID-19 is creating a new population of students with disabilities who have long-term effects from the virus.
• Over two-thirds of colleges had additional students apply for disability accommodations during the pandemic, but are the students receiving them?
• COVID-19 is providing an opportunity to talk about inclusive design and design justice in curricular and classroom design.
• More colleges are thinking about hiring Chief Health Officers to help with the pandemic.
• College students have high rates of “mental distress” when they are under quarantine, according to a new French study.

• People with Down Syndrome are ten times more likely to die from COVID-19; advocates say this information will support efforts to reduce risk.  [This is also pertinent information as higher education transition programs decide whether (and how) to re-open.]
• Johns Hopkins hosted Dr. Anthony Fauci to compare his work on HIV vs. COVID-19, and to offer advice to college students about the coronavirus.
  
  

Election 2020:

• Voting is inaccessible for one in three people with disabilities, including college students.  (The end of the article includes a link to a guide for voters with disabilities.)
• Arkansas college students are encouraging their peers to vote, with one student making a video in ASL.
• New Hampshire Technical Institute student Samuel Habib interviewed NH candidates for Governor and Congress, asking about six issues that are important to the disability community.

 
 
Student Stories:

• Ailbhe Keane started making colorful wheel covers for wheelchairs during college; now she and her sister have a thriving business making them.
• Netflix’s Deaf U is exploring mental health issues for Deaf students on the show, and the importance of having therapists who sign.
• Jacquie Thom, who is legally blind, completed her nursing degree at Okanagan College in Canada.
• UK student Alex Napieralski struggled with his ADHD during college, but support from professors and his college helped him succeed and go to graduate school.

 
 
Faculty Stories:

• Syracuse University Dean and Arts Professor Ann Clarke has created rugs of up to 14 feet to share her experiences caring for her ill mother, and being a woman and artist.
• Professor Brian Shannon at Texas Tech was awarded a Lex Frieden Employment Award for his commitment to making workplaces accessible.

 
Careers and Employment:

• In the UK, 57% of disabled young adults (ages 18-24) said the pandemic has affected their ability to find work.
• BraunAbility has announced a new mentorship program for college students with disabilities in Indiana.

 
Technology:

• Deaf college students are dealing with numerous problems as classes move online and there are constant problems with technology and access.
• Moving classes online has affected autistic K-12 and college students for better and worse, in unpredictable ways.
• GW has met the U.S. Department of Education’s standards for website accessibility, three years after a disability discrimination complaint was filed against the university.
• Zoom will be offering live transcription for all Zoom calls with Zoom for Otter for Business or Zoom Pro accounts.

 
Legal:

• Autistic UC Berkeley student Hari Srinivasan was featured in an Obama Instagram campaign around disability; he reflects on growing up with the ADA and yet not learning about it in schools.

 
 
 
For more information about DREAM, send an email to [email protected].  This newsletter is available in other formats upon request.  DREAM and the NCCSD are funded through a grant to AHEAD from the US Dept. of Education (P116D150005).
 
To subscribe or unsubscribe, please go to http://ahead-listserve.org/mailman/listinfo/dream_ahead-listserve.org.  DREAM can also handle requests to subscribe or unsubscribe. 
By the way, please don't presume DREAM, AHEAD, the NCCSD, or the U.S. Department of Education agree with everything we send out - we're just passing along the information so you can form your own opinions.  Thanks.
 
DREAM and the NCCSD acknowledge, with respect, the Waccamaw Siouan Tribe -- the Indigenous people on whose ancestral lands DREAM and the NCCSD are based.