DREAM Weekly Email: March 14-20, 2021

DREAM Weekly Email - Disability and Higher Education in the News: March 14-20, 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):

• After Stanford refused to provide a scribe as an accommodation for prospective student Antonio Milane, a campus debate started about disability and personal services, 57,000 people signed a Change.org petition in protest, and the university reversed its decision and will provide the service, although they have not provided details about how or what they will do.
• EdTech discusses how technology accessibility in higher education continues to be an issue with “a focus on tools rather than outcomes” and “individual students rather than systemic issues.”
• The National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine have released a report suggesting mental health, substance use and wellbeing in higher education can only be addressed with a holistic approach that improves campus climate, rather than relying on counseling centers.
• At the NWBA Collegiate Wheelchair Basketball National Championship, the University of Texas-Arlington’s “Movin’ Mays” men’s team brought home their ninth title, while the University of Alabama’s “Crimson Tide” took home their second.
• Netflix’s new movie Operation Varsity Blues reveals new details about the 2011-2018 college admissions scandal involving wealthy parents paying for fake learning disability diagnoses and athletic histories for their children.

 
 
General News:

• David Flink is a 2021 “CNN Hero” for using his own experiences in developing Eye to Eye, which matches college student mentors and middle school mentees who both have LD, ADHD, and other “beautiful minds.”
• Neurodiverse students, faculty, and staff at the University of Nevada, Reno have formed a Neurodiversity Alliance to “raise awareness, promote access, and ensure equity for the neurodiverse population.”
• Words have consequence: “Pulling trig,” “freshman 15,” and similar phrases can trigger or normalize eating disorders on campus, while “being OCD,” “Schizo,” or other phrases can be harmful for people with mental health conditions or addiction.
• A student-initiated survey is gathering possible new names for the University of Houston’s Center for Students with DisABILITIES, saying the emphasis on ABILITIE makes disability seem negative.
• The National Center on Accessible Educational Materials re-released a 2018 “Critical Components for the Quality Indicators for Higher Education” publication to help higher education institutions provide accessible materials and technology.
• There is no one right way to be disabled, and disabled people shouldn’t have to hide their pain to make others comfortable, says Aryanna Falkner of Bowling Green State University.
• Buffalo State College will be offering a new Deaf culture course taught by Deaf instructor Amy Crockford.
• University of North Texas student Jessica Schlottman formed “Someone Like Me” to address experiences of students with invisible disabilities, and now the group has 115 members.
• EduRef.net has published a list of “Most Affordable Online Colleges for Students with Learning Disabilities,” with Florida Atlantic University ranked as #1.
• A new Employment Assistance and Social Engagement (EASE) peer mentoring program at Arizona State University helps autistic engineering students transition to college and teaches career readiness. 
• Brigham Young University students with physical disabilities shared their experiences as college student, and the barriers and misunderstandings they face.
• Female college students with ADHD often go undiagnosed or unsupported, with doctors often assuming they have psychiatric conditions.
• Three students have created the first Disabilities Awareness Week at Lafayette College.
• Realities of college look nothing like the TV show “Skins” and for some first-year students, the show’s portrayals of partying, trauma, eating disorders, and illness can be problematic.

 
 
BIPOC and Diversity News:

• Drones, drivers picking up assignments, Internet access…Tribal colleges and universities are finding creative ways to support resilient students, but mental health needs and grief are still significant problems.
• Soledad O’Brien interviewed Georgetown and American University lecturer Lydia X. Z. Brown to talk about intersections of racism, ableism, identity, and disability justice; Brown will be part of O’Brien’s “Matter of Fact Listening Tour” series.   
• Black disabled actress and disability activist Lauren “Lolo” Spencer has been cast as one of the regulars in Mindy Kaling’s upcoming comedy series “The Sex Lives of College Girls.”
• A new report recommends telemedicine and collaboration for community colleges in rural areas, with public community college and tribal colleges having difficulty meeting the demand for health care and mental health services. 
• After emigrating from Brazil when she was 12, opera singer Louisa Waycott developed type I diabetes, but she didn’t know how to manage it until a college study abroad trip, finding a life coach, and meeting other women with diabetes.
• A new Osaze Osagie College Scholarship Endowment honors Osagie, a Black student who had autism and schizophrenia, who was killed by State College police officers in 2019.
• Perri Meldon at Boston University worked with the National Parks Service and the National Historic Landmarks Program to create a disability history and culture handbook for park staff, including information about disability and its complex history with gender, race, ethnicity, and class.
• NASA is celebrating National Deaf History Month with a profile of Frances Cheney and her evolution from a deaf child with no accommodations in China, to having two Master’s degrees and working at Goddard Space Flight Center.
• LGBTQ+ students at Christian colleges are less likely to have peer supports, more likely to be closeted, three times more likely to report higher rates of depression and anxiety, and more likely to be bullied or sexually assaulted compared to cisgender students. 

 
 
COVID-19 News:

• COVID-19 has revealed truths about ableism and how a simple accommodation can be denied, but “when millions of people need complex accommodation, it is deemed essential.”
• Ten different University of New Mexico services offices, including the Accessibility Resource Center, share statistics about changes during the pandemic, including a 623% increase in hours of captioning for courses.
• A research study published in the Journal of Postsecondary Education and Disability studies disabled students’ transition to online learning during spring 2020, with students reporting some barriers and concerns, but overall support from their campuses, faculty, and disability services providers.
• An Inside Higher Ed opinion piece says re-opening higher education will require major effort and collaboration, including allowing telecommuting for workers who are caregivers or high risk, having affordable health care and paid medical leave for all employees, and numerous protections to keep everyone safe.
• The California Governor’s Council for Postsecondary Education has created Recovery with Equity: A Roadmap for Higher Education after the Pandemic, with recommendations to address students’ mental health needs and to promote inclusion and collaboration.
• Students with learning disabilities may have developed strategies for in-person courses that aren’t working with online instruction, but there are resources to help.
• News about student mental health during the pandemic:

• At UC Berkeley, 80% of the students visiting counseling services were experiencing stress due to the pandemic.
• Students are increasingly using TikTok during the pandemic, and students with eating disorders are finding it difficult to avoid harmful messages around exercise, eating, and recovery, even while the recovery community is fighting pro-ana content.
• Students at the University of Pennsylvania are increasingly turning to student organizations and telehealth counseling services.
• K-12 schools and colleges are all preparing for students to return to classrooms with an “onslaught of serious mental health conditions” they may bring with them.

 
 
Politics and Law:

• President Biden overturned President Trump’s ban on federally funded diversity training, but legislators in Iowa are trying to find ways to continue the ban that still exists at the University of Iowa, and Boise State University has halted a diversity course for 1300 students that some Idaho legislators condemn as a course “infused with social justice, a toxic ideology.”
• In a worst-case scenario, students in mental health crises who take a medical leave of absence can lose services or financial aid, and be expelled or deported, and Christian Roman alleges all of that happened to him at the University of Toronto, leading to his formal complaint with the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario.
• The American Rescue Plan stimulus checks will be available for adult dependents, helping many people with disabilities eligible for their first checks.
• Autism researchers, along with agencies and activists, are concerned about the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee not meeting since July 2019; the committee makes recommendations to the Secretary of Health and Human Services.

 
 
International News:

• Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union campaigns and elections were all online, but only one of the 13 candidates had an accessible website.
• Students with disabilities will be able to get support and services from counseling centers at Ghana’s University of Development Studies, with hopes the university will be a model for other public universities.
• A bullying incident involving an autistic student at Singpore’s Institute of Technical Education has drawn condemnation and an apology from the alleged bully for “preying on the weak.”
• Saudi Arabia’s Taibah University held an “Excellence in Education and Learning for People with Disability” conference, including sessions on e-learning for university students.

 
 
Sports:

• Xander Van Der Poll was the first disabled rower at the University of Bristol, and now the medical student with a spinal cord injury is planning to compete in the Paralympics.
• There have been notable deaf and hard of hearing players and coaches at the college and pro levels of baseball.
• Autistic Fort Hays State University student Will Fried wants to break down barriers for people with disabilities by being a basketball referee.

 
 
Student Stories:

• Ele Sorenson of Hamilton College received the U.S. Department of State Critical Language Scholarship to study Arabic in Morocco – as a disabled student she is interested in disability policy in the Middle East.
• Autistic Sheridan College student Matteo Esposito created “Sorting It Out,” a play exploring autism, and now BurlOak Theatre in Ontario is producing it.
• As a quadriplegic, Paul Chiou at USC understands the importance of accessible technology, and plans to make a career of developing it.  

 
 
Faculty and Staff Stories:

• After an autism diagnosis at age 45 gave him some “peace,” California University of Pennsylvania professor Rueben Brock made a short film “Discovering Autism,” which premieres in Philadelphia this weekend.
• The President of Ecuador honored Harvard professors Michael Ashley Stein and William P. Alford with the National Order of Merit, in recognition for their work on international disability policy and founding of the Harvard Law School on Disability.
• Julie Paulson at San Francisco State University received a research award to support her book on intelligence, people with intellectual disabilities, and higher education.

 
 
 
 
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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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.