At our 2nd FIG meeting of the Spring, ten participants joined us on Webex, including Sue Carpenter calling in from the U.K.! Jason and Kensaku from Melissa Riggio also joined us to chat.
Sue updated us on her work overseas during her sabbatical, where she is involved with some very progressive research at University of Kent with research teams that include people with disabilities themselves as an integral part of the team (illustrating the old demand from the disability rights movement, “Nothing about us without us!”). She also shared an interesting cultural / political comparison between the U.S. and U.K., wherein the U.K. is more progressive in terms of providing internships and employment for people with disabilities, and the population at large is more knowledgeable about disability in general than the U.S.
At the same time, however, perhaps largely because of the civil rights movement that ended racial segregation in the U.S., which then led to the disability rights movement, we have more inclusive higher education opportunities for people with disabilities (as well as a history of open admissions and community colleges that welcome all students). By comparison, students with disabilities are more segregated and excluded from higher education the U.K., though there is interest in more inclusive models, which Sue is helping to further in her work. Thanks for joining us and sharing this update, Sue!
In keeping with this “cross-cultural comparison” theme, at the end of the meeting (to jump ahead) we decided to watch two films, “Summer in the Forest,” which gives insight into innovative models for people with intellectual disability in France and Palestine, and “Crip Camp” on Netflix which covers a camp in upstate NY for people with disabilities that Judith Heumann and other founders of the disability rights movement attended. We will compare and contrast these films in our next meeting to gain further insights.
Jason and Kensaku shared that although students at KCC were withdrawn from classes this semester after we unexpectedly went remote, we are hoping that they will be able to attend with full Blackboard access in the Fall, while it is still uncertain whether will we be in distance learning or not. We hope to learn from the experiences of the other CUNY campuses whose Melissa Riggio students continued with remote learning this semester, and we all thought reaching out to faculty at other campuses who are active around these issues would be a good idea. Ideally, some folks from these other campuses could join us at our next FIG meeting. That way, we can help to generalize lessons among the faculty at KCC who will hopefully have Melissa Riggio students in the Fall. It sounded like the Melissa Riggio students were rather disappointed upon being withdrawn from classes this semester, so we hope that we can help to give them a positive and inclusive experience in the Fall.
Finally, we began to discuss how we can support CUNY Unlimited students in the Fall and beyond by identifying particular classes at KCC in each of our departments that promote key skills that will be useful for employment of students with disabilities. Lisa shared a useful article that framed this matter around 8 key areas of “soft skills” that employers themselves have identified as lacking in job applicants. An important point that emerged in our discussion was that students with intellectual (and other) disabilities many times can obtain a job, but they later lose it due to difficulties with communication, teamwork, interpersonal skills, or not understanding how best to advocate for themselves on the job (as well as employer misunderstandings or lack of flexibility). We plan to discuss this further next meeting, launching our discussion from the 8 categories, and thinking about what classes already emphasize these skills at KCC, and how we might integrate these important job skills further into our teaching and curriculum.
Thanks for a great meeting everyone! Our next meeting will likely be mid or late May.
~Jeremy Sawyer
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