DREAM Weekly Email, Disability and Higher Education in the News: November 22-December 5, 2020

DREAM Weekly Email, Disability and Higher Education in the News: November 22-December 5, 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
  
Top Five News Items This Week :

• In some states, a significant percentage of low-income adults enrolled in Medicaid and other public safety net programs are working for public university systems.
• As COVID disproportionately affects different populations, financial aid officers could be using their professional discretion to adjust financial aid packages.
• A new peer recovery support and advocacy program at Heartland Community College provides long-term support for students with addiction, substance abuse and mental health diagnoses, with a goal of treating these conditions as the illnesses they are.
• Read about the journey of Jessica Orozco, a sophomore at Ohio State University with anxiety, as she has navigated hybrid, online, and in-person courses switching to all online classes.
• The CDC is urging states to use college campuses as COVID vaccine administration sites for campuses and members of the public; some campuses are also considering mandatory vaccinations for students and employees.

 
General News:

• The pandemic has given institutions a chance to consider how disability is part of educational systems and how faculty can be involved in accessibility and disability policy.
• Faculty with chronic illnesses deal with stigma, disclosure, and expectations for “heroic stamina.”
• While social media promotes “lockdown slimdowns,” students with eating disorders are struggling and having difficulty accessing supports and treatment.
• As preparation for the new movie Run (about a prospective college student who uses a wheelchair), those involved with the movie learned about ableism and disability culture, with some information from the disability studies program at Brown University.
• UIC will create a new two-year inclusive higher education certificate program and the University of Hampshire will create a new inclusive program to complement its existing UNH-4U transition webinar training series.
• A blind alumnus has set up a bursary (i.e., fund for non-tuition expenses) for blind students at the University of Oxford; among other things, it will cover travel and accommodations during O&M training.
• The University of Illinois’ residential program for students with physical disabilities has been closed despite student petitions to administrators; students were told to stay home or hire their own personal care assistants.
• What does the International Day of People with Disabilities mean for people in the U.S.?  Syracuse University law professor Arlene Kanter shares her thoughts.
• Student Sarah Letchford sued Ohio University for alleged discrimination after it unenrolled her and refused to return tuition payments following a mental health-related hospitalization.
• The University of Manchester is celebrating its Disabled Staff Network as part of disability history month in the UK.
• Remote learning may offer new opportunities for universal design in teaching and learning.
• The University of Dundee inaugurated a new annual Disability Awareness Lecture in honor of disability activist and staff member Eddie Small.
• A new faculty book club at the University of Oregon will focus on intersections of disability, race, and other systems of oppression.
• Faculty have formed a new union at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia; they will start working on health care for adjuncts, which was discontinued five years ago.
• Forbes has information about discharging student loans through bankruptcy, including options for people with disabilities.

 
BIPOC, Diversity, and International News:

• Consider four reasons students should take up ethnic studies, which can include disability studies.
• Institutions now typically require a diversity, equity, and inclusion statement from potential hires, so The Chronicle of Higher Education suggests what not to write.
• Dr. Floyd Morris has been elected to the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities; he is director of the Centre for Disability Studies at the University of the West Indies.
• College students in China continue to be infected with HIV at high rates, with occasional reports of students with HIV or AIDS being isolated or forced to leave school.

 
 
COVID-19 News:

• A new free 24-hour teletherapy line has been set up to help people with developmental disabilities and their caregivers during the pandemic. (Note: the NCCSD will add this to our list of crisis resources at www.NCCSDClearinghouse.org).
• Many colleges plan to stop using pass-fail grading policies set up to help students’ mental health and address other concerns of struggling students.
• For spring, the University of Florida has refused 144 faculty requests to teach remotely, including a cancer survivor and professor with asthma.
• UCLA nurses protested working conditions; the Daily Bruin notes that athletes and campus staff are tested more often than health care workers on campus.
• As students return to campuses, Nicole Mendez-Villarrubia asks how students with chronic illnesses like hers will manage, when they benefitted from online learning.
• There have been several news articles about students struggling with remote learning and the pandemic:
• Students in Canada report difficulty with ableism’s effects on accommodations, online courses, and faculty.
• Students struggle with unanticipated difficulties with online learning at San Diego City College
• Three students at the University of Nevada, Reno talk about their experiences with classes, disability issues, and faculty since classes moved online.
• Right now, support for engagement and participation for student veterans may be of higher priority than concerns about mental health.
• A column in FE Week discusses how to address needs of “medically vulnerable” staff required to return to campuses in the UK.

 
 
Student Stories

• Blind Georgetown student and activist Khansa Maria has received a Rhodes Scholarship in her home country of Pakistan.
• Stony Brook University student Tara Evans has autism, speaks 11 languages (including Klingon), and will soon be on a pre-law or pre-med track after a previous career being a circus contortionist.
• As a blind student, Colin Lacki from Niagara County Community College will fight for accessibility at SUNY campuses as one of 27 students on the new SUNY Student Voices Action Committee.
• Two cousins have signed to play sports for Division I programs: Misha Berry will play tennis at Cal Poly, and Aaron Berry will play wheelchair basketball for the University of Alabama.
• Lakyra Walker was crowned Homecoming Queen at Jones College in Mississippi, and she’s the first one to use a wheelchair.
• “I am who I am, because of all that I am,” says student Aaron Holliday at UW-Whitewater, who says he would have missed many opportunities if he didn’t have spina bifida.

 
 
Faculty and Staff Stories:

• As Oberlin professor Nancy Darlin watched her son take a leave from college to deal with chronic pain, she and her students created an app for people with chronic pain to log health information, but also emotions, activities, and self-care.
• Autistic professor Stephen Shore is an expert about autism, and when he is traveling, he shares his expertise and disability inclusion information with Chabad Houses (Jewish community centers) in the U.S. and around the world.

 
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).
 
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.  We hope our work honors them.