Audience members listen to panelists discuss issues surrounding Americans with disabilities at the Critical Disability Studies Panel held at McKeldin Library on Oct. 8.
For senior Chris Gaines, adding a disability studies minor or certificate program is an important step for this university to address disability — and ability — issues.
“Bring the situation to the forefront. Talk about it. We should not shy away from it,” said the family science major, who has cerebral palsy. “It affirms it as a relevant issue. It needs to exist in some way if people want to pursue that academically.”
Special education professors Carolyn Fink and Peter Leone agree — so they’re spearheading the effort to create the program.
“It’s an acknowledgment that, in the past 30 years, there’s been a transformation in our society about how we conceptualize what it means to be disabled,” Leone said. “It’s an acknowledgment, too, that we’re all people in environments, and we can shape those environments in ways that provide full access to everybody.”
This fall, Fink and Leone received a $15,000 Moving Maryland Forward grant from the Office of Diversity and Inclusion to begin looking into a program to establish a disability studies certificate or minor program for undergraduates.
Fink and Leone held a focus group meeting on Oct. 13 to discuss the possibilities. The meeting drew about 20 people, including Gaines, who is also a student representative on the President’s Commission on Disability Issues.
With support from many departments across the campus such as sociology, kinesiology, diversity and inclusion, special education and hearing and speech sciences, Fink and Leone said they expect the program to take off.
“We’ve been thrilled by the student energy around this,” Fink said. “We believe that if the students want it, it will happen.”
Fink and Leone teach two classes on disability issues in the special education department, and the class’s success and popularity has encouraged them to create a more concrete and extensive disability studies program.
“Kids have come out of our courses saying, ‘This has really changed how I view myself in the world,’ and that’s kind of what you want college to be,” Fink said. “So if they can take the next step and make it a focus of their lives, [they should].”
But Fink emphasized that disability studies is not and should not be considered coursework only for people with disabilities — these issues cut across all facets of life.
“You look at all of our families and you have people who are differently abled,” Leone said. “We want University of Maryland to step up and be on the cutting edge of how as a society we think differently about what we mean by this concept of disability.”
This university would not be one of the first schools to create such a program, and Fink said it is still in its beginning phases. Thirty-nine institutions have instituted or are developing academic programs. Big Ten institutions Ohio State University and the University of Iowa both have disability studies certificate or minor programs, and the University of Wisconsin is working on developing a program, having hired three staff members to work on it.
Leone and Fink plan to meet with another focus group in early December and said they are confident they can make a plan by merging courses across departments.
Junior Rachel Kuff took Leone’s class on disability last spring. Now, she is a teaching assistant for the class and is helping plan a disability conference for the end of this month.
Kuff will work with Leone and Fink next semester on the certificate program.
“It’s such an important topic for people to learn about because it’s so prevalent in society and on campus,” said Kuff, an accounting and management major. “Just learning about different types of people, it helps with any kind of major. … It can benefit anyone.”
Fink and Leone said they would like to extend the program to the graduate level eventually, but they are excited about the beginning phases and the reactions they’ve heard so far.
“It’s about an evolving conceptualization about what it means to be humans,” Leone said. “It’s not an us and them, but it’s an all of us and some of us need adaptations or accommodations.”
