UND hosts first-ever campus Disability Day

Grand Forks Herald - 3/19/2024

Mar. 19—GRAND FORKS — The experience of intellectually and physically-disabled people was the focus of a lecture and poster session at UND on Monday.

Rehabilitative studies faculty and students coordinated to host the university's first-ever Disability Day in the Memorial Union ballroom.

"This is about having open conversations about disability," said Lee Ann Williams, a clinical assistant professor in the Education, Health and Behavior Studies Department. "We have a lot of people here with disabilities. They may be invisible, you may not see them, but they're here."

The back of the sprawling ballroom was lined with student-made posters detailing a host of disability topics like autism spectrum disorder, traumatic brain injuries, Individualized Education Plans and chronic pain.

Representatives from student government, the Department of Occupational Therapy and potential employers of rehabilitative studies students were among the groups with booths.

Its featured speaker, Dr. Alan Bruce, described the disability movement as at a "critical point," saying disability had to be included in mainstream conversation and placing disability activism alongside social justice movements against racism and other forms of discrimination.

"Around us are a lot of significant challenges happening in the world, where disability can't possibly stand back and observe but will be affected by it equally," Bruce said. "We are here and we are condemned to work with each other."

Williams offered a flipped version of Bruce's remarks, saying conversations about disability were an avenue to having broader conversations about social inequity.

"What we say is disability is the one group you can join at any time, whether you acquire disability by birth, by accident or through mental health," Williams said. "So having that opportunity to educate yourself about these things I think is really important."

Williams, who joined UND's faculty in August, organized the event with the support of her students in her rehabilitative science classes. She'd participated in disability awareness events at East Tennessee State University and wanted to bring a similar event to UND.

The event incorporated simple, but helpful disability accommodations, like not playing music to minimize background noise for hearing-impaired people, and spacing posters far enough apart to create a navigable path for wheelchair users, according to Marisa Smith and Emily Just, two of Williams' students who helped organize the event.

David Perry, a retired professor who taught rehabilitation and occupational therapy courses at UND for several decades, noted the field had changed considerably in his decades of teaching.

"Acceptance and awareness of folks with disabilities has come a long way," he said.

He added, though, that there were still significant discriminatory and attitudinal barriers for disabled people.

Steffanie Young, who coordinates experiential learning for students at UND and who had her leg amputated at the knee late last year, noted she dealt with occasional stares and, prior to her amputation, occasionally tasteless questions about her affected leg.

"I do wish people were a little more sensitive to what others were going through," she said

A UND graduate, she said UND had gotten much better at accessibility since her undergraduate career, citing a new handicap-accessible entrance to O'Kelley Hall, but that the campus still posed challenges, especially in winter.

"It's a great thing for there to be more awareness," she said.

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