DREAM Weekly Email: February 28-March 6, 2021

​DREAM Weekly Email - Disability and Higher Education in the News: February 28-March 6, 2021
 
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 (see attached Word document for full newsletter with links):

• New Mobility has published its first-ever “Wheels on Campus” issue, with a guide to wheelchair-friendly campuses, and its choices for the top 20 schools for wheelchair users.
• The Smith College community continues to deal with the aftermath of a racial profiling incident last year that illustrates intersections of race, class, and disability.
• In an international study of 17,000 college students in 21 countries, more than half said their mental health has worsened during the pandemic, with increasing rates of depression and 30% of US students saying they struggled to pay for housing, utilities, food, and medical care.
• History students do not learn how to emotionally deal with research into past horrors, despite many historians struggling with significant vicarious trauma from their work – something that is widely misunderstood and easy dismissed by employers and colleagues.
• Before starting work in the University of Illinois chemistry labs, he has to put on PPE, including goggles and a lab coat, but for Sampson, it’s all a day in the life of a service dog for neuroscientist Joey Ramp, who has disabilities from traumatic head injuries.

 
General News:

• The Stanford Class of 2025 is demanding changes to “ableist” policies and a scribe for student Antonio Milane, who has CP and was told scribes are a “personal preference;” student activists are discussing whether there should be designated funds to help students pay for personal accommodations the university will not provide.
• Gallaudet University hired Deaf Catholic priest and alum Father Min Seo Park as a chaplain, and livestream attendance of Mass went from 95 viewers to over 800.
• Western University is setting up student advisory groups, creating programming, and including disability in equity and diversity work, after a report issued 48 recommendations for “comprehensive approaches” to accessibility.
• With ongoing financial difficulties, San Francisco City College is cutting 40% of its staff in DSPS (Disabled Students Programs and Services), as part of cuts to 160 full-time equivalent faculty across campus.
• Inclusive higher education programs are in the news, including the ABLE Program at Huntington University and the GOAL Program at the University of Northern Colorado, which is celebrating the first class of graduates this semester.
• Harvard instructor Zachary Nowak shares his thoughts about “compassionate video-on and attendance policies,” including considerations for students struggling with mental health.
• Boston University held the Second-Language Learning and Disabilities Conference, to determine how second-language learning can be more inclusive to people with disabilities for in-person and online learning.
• The University of Oregon Prison Education Program has undergraduates and incarcerated students taking courses together in prison; they are expanding the program to reach inmates with mental health concerns.
• After a review of disability services determined some ineligible students at Arizona State University were getting early class registration, the accommodation was cancelled without notice for some students who needed it.
• Healthline’s list of women who have made an impact on people with disabilities, including Dr. Nicole Johnson, diabetic and 1999 Miss America who created the Students with Disabilities organization for college students.
• Autistic student Hannah Botnick says Skidmore College “forgets about students with disabilities,” and offers some tips for disabled peers who are learning online.
• Three college programs in Colorado are helping people with intellectual disabilities learn practical job skills and find employment.
• Zoom is adding automatic closed captioning (“Live Transcription”) to all free accounts.
• College students may use drugs and alcohol to self-medicate for mental illnesses, but that exacerbates the problems, says an editorial at Rutgers University.
• Insurance premiums for colleges and universities have increased up to 35% due to increased threats of lawsuits, with Title IX issues ranking #3 for top liability risks.
• March 1 was the National Day of Mourning honoring people with disabilities killed by family and caregivers, and many universities across the country held online vigils, including The University of Maryland and Syracuse University. 
• An opinion piece at Texas State University is encouraging administrators to fund specialized psychiatric and wellness therapy for athletes.
• Learn about the autism supports, programs, and services at the College of Staten Island and CUNY, which hosted a joint conference on neurodiversity this week.
• Safe Space CNY in Syracuse, NY, is a communal mental health collective with support groups that aims to help college students; its founder had to leave Syracuse every time she needed eating disorder and mental health treatment during college.

 
 
BIPOC and Diversity News:

• Ever Lee Hairston tried to use college as a way to escape sharecropping, but she failed a college vision exam that almost derailed her journey to becoming a teacher and blind disability and civil rights activist who marched with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. [video with the article is not closed captioned].
• International student Divya Singh tried to pay a large tuition bill from Hofstra University, and ended up in a mental health crisis requiring hospitalization, which then led to a bill for $3,413 from the hospital…and she’s not the only one.
• Harvard refused to give tenure to Cornel West, leading The Chronicle of Higher Education to ask whether universities “embrace activist rhetoric, but not activists.”
• The Daily Bruin is urging UCLA to move forward on their delayed plans to use mental health professionals for mental health emergencies instead of police, noting past problems with complaints and disproportionate arrests of people of color on campus.
• Over 3 million marginalized students have stopped attending K-12 and higher education during the pandemic, including BIPOC, disabled people, and those without access to WiFi.
• The 3/20 Coalition had a “peaceful die-in” in Pennsylvania, calling for the district attorney’s resignation in the case of African American autistic and schizophrenic student Osaze Osagie, who was killed by community police. 
• The editor in chief of Haskell Indian Nations University’s student newspaper is suing the university and federal Bureau of Indian Education for allegedly retaliating against him after he inquired into the death of a young staff member.
• Since Lake Washington Institute of Technology became the first US college to deal with COVID much has changed, and they are now prioritizing in-person courses where BIPOC students and disabled students are struggling.
• WXII in NC aired a story about the state’s new A Place to Call Home program for youth in foster care, featuring a young homeless diabetic man named Jose, who then found a family and joined the culinary arts degree program at Guilford Technical Community College. 
• A Chinese international doctoral student died by suicide at the University of Florida; now Professor Tao Li is suspended, with an investigation into whether his alleged bullying and mistreatment are to blame.
• Professor Thomas Brennan was fired from Ferris State University for anti-Semitic, homophobic, and racist tweets, but says they are not discrimination because they resulted from a disability and his inability to talk about his condition at work.
• Helen Keller was the first deafblind person to graduate from college, and in her work as a disability activist she also strived for racial equality.

 
 
COVID-19 News:

• Conversations about equity in campus re-openings are not always including disability, and students with disabilities may lose what they have gained with online courses.
• Senior Sabrina Epstein gave Johns Hopkins University the idea for its COVID-19 vaccine dashboard after she couldn’t get an appointment despite having Ehlers-Danlos syndrome.
• Clayton State University is using money from the federal CARES Act to launch new mental health services, including student navigators to help student navigate health care systems.
• When Norwich University president Colonel Mark Anarumo locked down campus and required students to quarantine in the dorms, he was worried about students’ mental health, so he moved into a dorm, too.
• Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced that everything in Texas in open and there is no longer any mask mandate, alarming colleges concerned about their policies and high-risk students, faculty, and staff.

 
 
Politics and Law:

• The US Senate confirmed Miguel Cardona to be the next secretary of education; in January, he promised a greater commitment to civil rights while discussing disability and education with advocates, including better access to higher education and employment, financial aid concerns, and universal design.
• Allegations of sexual harassment and assault are keeping Representative Madison Cawthorn (NC-R) in the news, adding on to media reports of lies relating to his Paralympic hopes, as well as his disabling car accident and how it affected his college career at the US Naval Academy.
• The House’s $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief plan has moved to the US Senate; it includes funding for state Medicaid programs, and people with disabilities who are dependents would be eligible for direct payments of $1400 if they earn less than $75,000/year.
• A court found Alek Minassian guilty of murder after he drove his rental car onto a sidewalk in Toronto in 2018, killing 10 and injuring 16; his defense argued that he was not guilty because he is autistic., leaving activists outraged about autism being equated with violence.
• In the UK, candidates for the University of Cambridge’s Undergraduate President race include Zak Coleman, who is campaigning for increased funding to the Disability Resource Center and University Counselling Service.
• Lawrence Ray is accused of creating abusive “therapy” sessions for his daughter’s friends at Sarah Lawrence College, and now one of his victims, Isabella Pollok, has been charged as a co-conspirator.
• The ABLE accounts program in Indiana has grown 48% in a year, with assets of $5.7 million.  (Learn more about ABLE accounts at https://www.ablenrc.org/what-is-able/what-are-able-acounts/).

 
 
International News:

• UK Conservatives have argued that re-openings need to happen quickly to avoid worsening mental health outcomes, but new research (which included university students) says this isn’t true, and re-opening too quickly can actually make things worse.
• As the housing market in New Zealand heats up, university students with disabilities are facing higher rents and discrimination in a competitive market.
• The University of Cambridge responded to students’ complaints about mental health and disability services by creating a research study about their well-being, but students say it is a token effort instead of the tangible support they need.
• London researcher Julia Cook published an article about autistic “camouflaging” in everyday life, opening up a discussion about #AutisticsAcademia.
• The UK government has created a list of resources for students, families, faculty and staff can find information supporting their mental and emotional health -- some resources may assist people in the US, as well.
• A Chinese court has ruled that homosexuality is a psychological disorder and may be portrayed that way in college textbooks, saying other views are opinion and not fact.
• A new program in Ghana is merging inclusive technical and vocational training with a government high school, so students with disabilities can earn national certificates and learn skills for better jobs.

 
 
Student Stories:

• Three Syracuse University students share their stories about having eating disorders and how it’s affected them.
• College student Emanuel Sandefur died in a car crash last week, and his father blames Medicaid, which denied Emanuel the new wheelchair that would have helped him sit safely in the back of their van.
• Dealing with homelessness and multiple disabilities, University of Nebraska at Kearney student Phadiziana Smith-Whiteside found campus and community resources to help her become the first person in her extended family to attend college.
• Rachel Barcellona was the first autistic person to compete in and win the Miss Florida pageant, and now the University of South Florida student is starting her own charity, “The Ability Beyond Disability.”

 
 
Faculty and Staff Stories:

• Joanne Weber at the University of Alberta has been named as Canada’s first-ever research chair in deaf education.
• After first playing video games online with other wounded warriors, Jody Farmer became a coach for the esports team at the University of Oklahoma.
• Professor Alison Piepmeier died of cancer before finishing a book on disability and motherhood, but colleague and friend Professor Rachel Adams is honoring her by finishing the book.
• The Guardian published an excerpt of Places I’ve Taken My Body by Kenyon College instructor Molly McCully Brown, reflecting on disability, desire, the body, school, and college.

 
 
 
 
DREAM and the NCCSD are funded through a grant to AHEAD from the US Dept. of Education (P116D150005).  For more information about DREAM, send an email to DREAM@ahead.org.  This newsletter is available in other formats upon request.  If you have difficulty accessing articles, please let us know and we may be able to help. 
 
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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.