CUNY Unlimited 2nd Fall 2020 FIG Meeting (10/26/20)
Our second FIG meeting of Fall 2020 was attended by 18 people! This included a diverse mix of students, Melissa Riggio mentors and staff, faculty, and staff/administrators from KCC. It was very powerful to share perspectives and make links across our various positions and relations to inclusive education at KCC.
In this meeting the CUNY Unlimited FIG “returned to its roots” by focusing directly on our Melissa Riggio students, which was a focus of the FIG when it was founded by Sue and others some years ago. We had some fantastic guests at this meeting – current Melissa Riggio students and their peer mentors, as well as Kensaku, a director of the Melissa Riggio program.
We discussed their fantastic contributions in general to our learning environments, as well as specific experiences (highlights and/or challenges) with the inclusion process as it is currently unfolding. Below we will fill in notes from the meeting within each section of our agenda:
Agenda
- Updates from FIG members (including Margot’s upcoming event) [10 min]
We had some new faculty as well as students and mentors who were attending for the first time, so we did a round of introductions, which highlighted our diverse positions and experiences with disability, but also our common dedication to inclusive education. Margot mentioned her upcoming event “Living with a Disability in 2020” that will take place on November 19th at 10:15am, in which her castmates and she will discuss making art, connecting with others, and living with a disability during the pandemic.
- Contributions made by Melissa Riggio students, the theme of Sue’s upcoming University of Kent talk (Sue will kick off this section) [20min]
Sue kicked off this section by discussing her upcoming talk “The contribution of students with intellectual disabilities in higher education: an international perspective” that she will give on Wed. 10/28 at 1p EST (she will give the talk from the UK at this event sponsored by University of Kent). This theme of contribution framed the discussion in this section…
- Our experiences with inclusion this semester (Tommy M., Melissa Riggio mentors, Sue’s student and others welcome to share) [25 min]
This was a lively discussion where we heard from multiple people. A common denominator seemed to be that Melissa Riggio students bring “enthusiasm” for learning and connecting with their peers that seems unrivaled among their classmates. As people reported, this can help to crack the ice and raise the engagement level, even in a fully online course.
Melissa Riggio students reported the value of feeling that their peer mentors were interested in them as people, beyond their mere academic success, and how much this meant to them. Michael talked about adjusting to college, and wanting to just survive it at first, and saying his mentor has been key in getting accustomed to higher education. Melisa shared that having MRHEP students only officially enter her class 3 weeks into the semester was unfortunate because this is not ideal for students or teachers, and it does not conform with best practices as discussed in our last FIG of wanting to make contact with students and their mentors even before class begins to create an optimal inclusion experience. Melisa also shared that group members of her MRHEP student have been extremely supportive during collaborative group work, and have seemed to raise their level of conscious, respectful, and flexible cooperation in response to this inclusion experience.
- Next meeting plans [5 min]
Sue reached out to Jenna Lamm, Coordinator of Disability Programs at CUNY, and Carrie Shockley who is also deeply involved in this work, and we are excited to report that they have agreed to attend our next FIG meeting to give updates on the CUNY Unlimited rollout, as well as to hear our feedback on specific priorities within that rollout. We will send out a doodle poll for the best time and date, but we are looking at the first week of December (week beginning 11/30) for this final FIG meeting of the semester.
Since our FIG is growing, we talked about how to build our network among various departments on campus, make contact with more chairs and peer mentors, and create more connections between the Students Unlimited Club, which aims to raise awareness of disability on campus, and the FIG.
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