The Center for Inclusion [CFI] will host an event to spread awareness for accessibility and disability resources on campus and to encourage communication among students and faculty.
This event, taking place on Feb. 26 from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the Union lobby, will have different tables and activities set up to provide resources and spread awareness to students who attend.
“What I want to come from this [event] is to give all the students that are facing any type of challenge with accessibility or disability a space for them to be able to communicate and bring forward their thoughts and their challenges,” Gabriela Rolim Da Silva Figuero, a graduate assistant for the CFI who is working to organize the event, said.
Rolim Da Silva Figuero also said that a goal for this event is to highlight the different accessibility resources students have available to them on and off campus, whether they are disabled or not.
“I think it’s important to have this conversation, so that it can become a collective effort to seek better circumstances, because accessibility benefits everyone,” Carly Webster, a junior arts management student with disabilities who is also planning the event, said. “I think what a lot of faculty, staff and students don’t understand is that you can become disabled at any time.”
Webster said that she would like to see more transparency surrounding disability accommodations provided by the university and more conversation surrounding the needs of students with disabilities.
“There’s a lack of conversation about disability and accessibility here among the other diversity initiatives…” Webster said. “What we’re battling right now is we don’t have the basic tools that we need to have an equitable experience compared to students who don’t have disabilities.”
Webster said a lot of the accommodations BW claims they offer are not currently available to students, and she feels BW needs to update their website to reflect that. Some of the examples she gave included an honor society for students with disabilities that no longer exists and the
Jacket Access Van that is supposed to help students with disabilities get to class in inclement weather is currently not in service.
“If something is no longer available to us, if that is not an option for us, it needs to stop being advertised,” Webster said.
Webster said that if she could put what changes she would like to see around the university in three words, it would be “consistency, clarity and collaboration.”
“There’s a lot of money and time and effort being poured into things like athletics, when, again, disabled students do not have basic tools,” Webster said.
Rolim Da Silva Figuero said she wants the BW community to see students with disabilities not just as one group that faces challenges but as a part of the larger community.
“What people should be aware of is that with communities, it is about union, not about separation,” Rolim Da Silva Figuero said.
The CFI will be hosting a second event on disability awareness next month on March 25, which will be an online workshop titled “The More You Know: Talking Accessibility and Disability.”
This online workshop will focus on how being disabled can affect a student’s mental and physical health, especially during the transition from high school to college, and what steps need to be taken to properly accommodate them.
While students can join this online workshop, it is more geared towards raising awareness among faculty and staff.
For now, students wanting to learn more about the challenges disabled students face and the resources available on campus can visit the Union lobby on Feb. 26 from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.
