DREAM Weekly News: September 18=24, 2022

​DREAM Weekly Email - Disability and Higher Education in the News: September 18-24, 2022
 
From DREAM: Disability Rights, Education, Activism, and Mentoring
Sponsored by the National Center for College Students with Disabilities
at the University of Minnesota’s Institute for Community Integration,
in collaboration with the Association on Higher Education And Disability (AHEAD)
                                                                                                                                         
This week’s newsletter and archived newsletters are available Monday at www.DREAMCollegeDisability.org.
 
Top Stories This Week (in no particular order)

• Teen Vogue takes on structuralized ableism and injustice in standardized tests like the SAT and LSAT, noting that for 20 years standardized tests have tested students’ disabilities, instead of their abilities.
• Oluwatobi Abubakare talks about her experiences as a Black autistic autism researcher getting her doctorate at Indiana University Bloomington, and how her personal experiences affect her research.
• The new movie “The Whale” starring Brendan Fraser is about an online college professor who develops an eating disorder while grieving the death of his partner.
• Connecticut College’s required first-year reading was Being Heumann: An Unrepentant Memoir of a Disability Rights Advocate, and it has students considering how disabled people aren’t seen or celebrated on campus (read an interview with Judy Heumann to learn more).
• The Gallaudet University Bison are “Deaf America’s Football Team,” credited with inventing the football huddle; The Guardian delves into what Deaf culture is like, and how it influences the team, fans, and students at Gallaudet.
• NASCAR driver and Oakland University student Armani Williams is one of the few Black drivers in NASCAR, and now he’s the first to talk about his autism and how it makes him a better driver.

 
General News

• A student’s tweet went viral after she criticized the process of getting accommodations for an emerging disability at the University of Guelph in Canada, with students and professors sharing their concerns as well, and the problems with “supplementary” accommodations” left up to professors’ discretion.
• Insight Into Diversity magazine asked how to make employment more equitable for people with disabilities, interviewing faculty and staff about what higher education can do to help.
• Disabled students started a “I Am Not Defined” podcast about disability issues at DePaul University, and now faculty and administrators are using it to recruit disabled students to campus.
• A new “Service Animals in Labs” guide gives faculty and students information about the law, safety considerations, and the use of equipment for service animals.
• AstroAccess is making spaceflight more accessible, and their second has flyers, crew members, and researchers that include three disabled university students and one professor.
• The new “Willowbrook Mile” at the College of Staten Island has 12 stations with information about Willowbrook’s harrowing history of inhumane abuse and institutionalization, including abuse by college members.  The stations also educate people about national de-institutionalization and community integration movements.
• Williams College has a new introductory ASL course with a Deaf instructor, thanks to advocacy by students and the town for the past 30 years.
• Being Michelle is a new documentary film about an autistic Deaf woman who experienced abuse and a lack of access in the criminal justice system.  She found hope and artistic abilities through classes at prison with a blind teacher.
• Students with disabilities at Cal State Fullerton lost their designated space in the library during COVID shutdowns, but the student group Abled Advocators is working with Disability Support Services to get it back.
• “The door to fixing college mental health is cracked, and it’s time to blow it open” and start talking about mental health with the same urgency and depth we use with physical disabilities, says U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy.
• Wheelchair-using students talk about accessibility at Brigham Young University and what happens when accessibility equipment and access starts falling apart.
• The Roanoke, Virginia Sheriff is using education to change the culture of city jails and improve recidivism rates through (R).I.G.N.I.T.E., a program that makes significant changes to the system, to support inmates in jail and after they are released.
• Even when a student loves their college, accessibility struggles and feeling included can be a lonely struggle, says Pomona College student Max Zonana, who wishes there were more wheelchair users at the “5C” colleges of Massachusetts.
• Two MIT students realized clothing design is inequitable for people with disabilities, so they created an Open Style Lab for students to solve complex design problems with interdisciplinary teams, showcasing their work at Boston Fashion Week.
• New research at Indiana University verifies that disabled students in K-12 general education courses are better at academics and better prepared for postsecondary education and employment.
• Award-winning film CODA’s star Emilia Jones explains why directors kept mistakes in her signing for the movie about a child of Deaf adults who wants to go to Berklee College of Music.
• Temple University’s Institute on Disabilities received $345,348 from the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage; Temple will use the money to premiere Rhythm Bath by choreographer Susan Marshall, whose art is influenced by her neurodiverse son.
• Mel C from the 90’s group Spice Girls is talking about her eating disorder, which developed when she went to a performing arts college.
• In its short guide to campus access, Columbia College Chicago has included the new disability student organization Varying Visions, a place for students with disabilities to share their art, discuss disability, and plan events that work for campus change.
• What are some reasons to take a break from college?  Anxiety can be one of those reasons.
• Going to college with asthma can mean dealing with new triggers, new asthma plans, and new discussions about the disease.
• What is college like for students with ADHD?  Students at Cal State Los Angeles who are setting up “The Neurodivergent Collective” student group, and Whitman College students share tips.
• Quilts from the National AIDS Memorial are now on display at the University of Alabama, honoring people who died from HIV and AIDS.

 
COVID-19 and Monkeypox News

• Yale students are questioning sickness policies, as attendance and accommodation double standards arise for those who have COVID-19 vs. those who have other respiratory illnesses.
• Clea Taylor is filing a disability discrimination suit against Reed College, alleging that she was not allowed to work from home in 2022 for disability-related reasons, even though she says her online work during the COVID shutdown received praise from her superiors.
• COVID-19 triggered “The Big Quit” but now even tenured professors are leaving academe after realizing they don’t have to put up with the mental and physical stress, strains on private life, and concerns over the health risks of teaching in-person.
• As students return to campuses, faculty need more tools and resources to handle illnesses and absences in the classroom.

 
BIPOC and Diversity News

• Whitney Fear uses her experiences with mental illness, addiction, poverty and growing up on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation as a psychiatric nurse practitioner and the subject of a new documentary for nurses titled “Who Cares: A Nurse’s Fight for Equity”
• More faculty of color are facing serious mental and physical health risks in academia, and they’re no longer willing to accept those risks in an effort to be “more than a diversity hire.”
• California College of the Arts student and staff member Ronika McClain says that becoming more comfortable as a person with chronic illnesses meant becoming more comfortable being a Queer person who practices BDSM.
• Northwestern STEM graduate students are changing words to action with several diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives that include race and disability, such as a campus climate survey, and inclusion of new DEI content into STEM courses.
• Brooki Fixico of the Muscogee (Creek) nation is a University of Oklahoma doctoral student working to educate Native American parents about special education services and postsecondary transition planning.  
• Black, Latinx, first-gen, low income, queer/trans students or students with mental illnesses have higher rates of persistence if they feel a sense of belonging and connection to support services.
• Assumptions persist about women in non-White cultures having lower rates of eating disorders, and a new study suggests this may be true for Hispanic and Native American college students.
• The Vanderbilt University clinic or Transgender Health is under attack by right-wing conservatives; transgender people are at high risk for mental and physical health concerns. [CW: The article contains strong and potentially triggering language about transgender health care.]
• Most students’ trust levels for their colleges and universities stayed relatively the same during COVID-19 lockdowns, increasing for students with disabilities and declining for Black and first-generation students.
• Eleven colleges and universities will receive $15 million from the National Science Foundation to create a collaborative system for more inclusive models of higher education and workforce training for BIPOC, people with disabilities, and other traditionally marginalized groups in rural areas and small cities.  The consortium includes RIT’s National Technical Institute for the Deaf.
• The University of Texas at Dallas is investigating Professor Timothy Farage, after he suggested “homosexuality…is a medical disorder” and a “cure for homosexuality” would take care of the monkeypox outbreaks.

 
International News

• Disability studies professor Jun Ishikawa was part of the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which has called on Japan to change policies isolating and institutionalizing disabled people throughout society, including education.
• The UN praised Jordan for its work on disability rights and legislation prohibiting disability discrimination, which has also improved access to schools and universities.
• Saudi Arabian health authorities are planning to offer more counseling services and “mental health literacy” across the country to reduce stigma about mental illness, but negative cultural-based biases against mental illness continue about Saudi college students and society in general.
• Researchers in Israel believe there is a connection between use of Facebook and social media and the declining mental health of college students.
• The Delhi High Court will allow an Indian student with a physical disability to begin postgraduate work in medical counseling; the program had said she was ineligible because polio had affected her left leg.
• In March, Canadians with mental illnesses will qualify for assisted suicide, and Professor David Fancy from Brock University is trying to address socioeconomic concerns that may make disabled people feel life isn’t worth living – what he calls “Hunger Games style social Darwinism.”
• Ireland’s Late Late Show featured bakery owner and author Una Leonard, who shared stories about worsening anorexia, bulimia, and suicidal ideation during school and college, but the host shut down any discussion of suicide, earning social media backlash.
• ADHD medicine may have a reputation as harmless “academic steroids” in India, but the Daily Star notes that recreational use can be dangerous for students, and it’s disrespectful to students who often have difficulty convincing others that they have ADHD and need medication.

 
Students, Staff, Faculty in the News

• Georgina Kleee is a new Dean’s Scholar-in-Residence at NYU Steinhardt, continuing her work in disability studies and representations of blindness in culture.
• Have I Told You About My Superpowers is a new book of poetry by UNC Charlotte student Luther Kissam, who uses writing to manage his bipolar disorder.
• Wendy Sun, from a Chinese immigrant family, is getting her MD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She had worked to establish a disability student group and cultural center, and hopes for more disability representation in health professions.

 
 
 
 
DREAM and the NCCSD are funded through a U.S. Department of Education grant (P116D150005) to the Institute on Community Integration at the University of Minnesota, in partnership with AHEAD. 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, the NCCSD, the University of Minnesota, AHEAD, 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, the NCCSD, and the Institute on Community Integration at the University of Minnesota recognize thay are based within the traditional homelands of the Dakota people. “Minnesota” comes from the Dakota name for this region, Mni Sóta Maḳoce, which loosely translates to the land where the waters reflect the skies.
It is important to acknowledge the peoples on whose land we live, learn, and work as we seek to improve and strengthen our relations with our tribal nations. We also acknowledge that words are not enough. We must ensure that our institution provides support, resources, and programs that increase access to all aspects of higher education for American Indian students, staff, faculty, and community members.