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)
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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 (DREAM@AHEAD.ORG). **
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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 DREAM@ahead.org.  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).
 
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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.