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CUNY Unlimited 3rd Meeting (12/9/21)
CUNY Unlimited 3rd Meeting, Fall 2021
The third FIG of the Fall semester 2021 was held on Thursday, Dec. 9th at 10am via zoom. 5 faculty, 3 administrators and 1 undergraduate alum/ disability advocate, together with two Melissa Riggio (MRHEP) students one now an alumni also attended. (students with intellectual disabilities)
Gabrielle Dekki was unable to attend but wrote to update us that travel training for MRHEP students would be taking place on and around campus over the Winter session and that MRHEP were now able to register at the same time as undergrad. students as long as faculty gave permission for them to attend.
Carrie Shockley Director of the CUNY Central Disability office then updated us on the roll out of CUNY Unlimited. (CU) It was explained that CU was a funnel for all applications to go through whether students were applying via MRHEP or CU. Carrie also explained that Hostos was waiting for the Pell Grant to be accepted. (this has since gone through) And once this had been cemented that Kingsborough would hopefully follow suite.
Stella Woodroffe, Director of Accessibility Services then spoke about the history of Disability Awareness Week (DAW) and a discussion followed as to how best we as a FIG could contribute to the D AW in Spring 2022 It was suggested that a panel of FIG members together with Students Unlimited members could lead a discussion after the showing of the film “Opening Doors to College” by Dan Habib, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0BFL9DLk-Q
The short documentary (for faculty) on including students with intellectual disabilities that is being generously worked on by Margot Cole and Carol Carrieli was shared and discussed. The idea of making the film partly on zoom was decided upon which would enable it to be made more economically and quicker as a way to promote CUNY Unlimited at KCC.
The FIG ran overtime towards the end of it an interesting and frank exchange was had between the 2 Melissa Riggio students. One asking of the other whether they had a stutter. It was made clear in the reply that they were fine with this being asked of them, and that they had in fact a speech impairment. This modelled an honest and direct exchange regarding disability for ‘neurotypicals!
The FIG was informative and supportive of members projects. Members were excited at the opportunity to be able to contribute to the Disability Services Disability Week together with Students Unlimited. The FIG has now cemented core members and new members should now be encouraged to join.
CUNY Unlimited 2nd Meeting (11/4/21)
CUNY Unlimited 2nd Meeting, Fall 2021
On 11/4/21 our FIG hosted a very special guest – Piers Wilkinson, a disability advocate from England to our virtual meeting. Twelve faculty, staff, student alumni, and we were honored to have Carrie Shockley and Jenna Lamm – CUNY Disability Program administrators attend the meeting.
Piers Wilkinson is the former National Union of Students Disabled Students’ Officer before the role was defunded in 2020, and now supports D&A’s work as their Higher Education Policy and Partnerships Lead. Piers has been deeply involved in disabled student representation at all levels for over 6 years, culminating in their election to national representative positions during the last 4 years, and in March 2020 was appointed to the Disabled Students’ Commission as a Student Voice Commissioner.
https://diversityandability.com/team/piers-wilkinson/
Piers has a great sense of humor, and he inquired about our favorite brand of tea along with our intros. Piers then treated us to an amazingly comprehensive history of disability law in England, and where it overlaps and rhymes with U.S. disability history. Although a recurring theme was the U.K. lagging 20 years behind the U.S. in terms of various protections for individuals and especially students with intellectual disabilities. For example there are no programs similar to CUNY Unlimited at Universities in the UK for students with intellectual disabilities to be included. We also saw the English disability law is far older.
Our minds were boggled to learn the first English law relating to disability was passed in 1339! Interestingly, this law protected disabled lords (known as “impotent”) from having their lands stolen while they were temporarily (or perhaps permanently) not able to see to their business. While I cannot do the whole of Piers’ fantastic presentation justice, below are a few notes on some of the older laws that he covered.
1535 – Poor Law Act (only 3 years of protection for “impotent”) non-able-bodied beggars
1774 – Enshrined the medical model, in that now a doctor must certify lunacy for a madhouse (e.g., Bedlam, where we get the adjective today).
1834 – Poor Law Amendment: workhouse conditions for disabled individuals must be worse than the working conditions for other workers.
1845 – Lunacy Act – removed disabled children at young ages from the home, and this could not be challenged by the family or the children themselves.
Idiots, Imbeciles, Lunatics: this disgusting terminology was coded language for late the 19th century. The U.S. equivalent of these were the “Ugly Laws” which prohibited certain disabled children or individuals from being seen in public.
There was a lively discussion following Piers’ presentation, and this included some discussion of employment statistics and support comparing the U.S. and England. We saw that employment rates for disabled people in the US (17%) are far worse than in England (in the 80% range generally), and a lot of this has to do with the fact that England provides money for employers (at least partial payment) for employing people with disabilities while the U.S. does not. In the end, we could agree that both countries have a long way to go in ensuring equitable access to both higher education and employment, and Piers and the others in attendance intend to continue advocating for this in any way we can. We thank Piers for coming and hope to see him again in the future!
CUNY Unlimited 1st Meeting (9/21/21)
CUNY Unlimited FIG No. 1 Fall 2021
The meeting took place on Sept. 21st at 12.00 pm. 12 members attended including 5 faculty, 3 students, two of which were alumni, (one of whom is a Melissa Riggio alumnus who we are delighted to stay in touch with) together with for 4 staff/ admin. He is the only person to sensibly stretch and move during the hour plus long meeting!
During introductions the Melissa Riggio student mentioned that the program had a new coordinator Frank Laskowitz. This was good to know for future collaborations and communications. We wish Jason Lau former coordinator all the best in his new administrative (promotion) role!
The group then watched a new 35 min. documentary by Dan Habib: Opening doors to college. Habib directed Intelligent lives which the FIG had watched and discussed in the Spring of 2020. A lively discussion followed as there were obvious parallels with the Temple and Millersville University programs to CUNY Unlimited programs and the Melissa Riggio program at KCC.
One of the criticisms of Habib’s documentary was that he did not interview or involve under graduates in the film, nor did he involve mentors. It has been researched (and spoken of many times in the FIG) that inclusion of students with intellectual disabilities benefits both undergraduates and Melissa Riggio students as well as the college community as a whole. Undergraduate mentors too have been seen to benefit greatly from their interactions, mentoring and indeed friendships with the Melissa Riggio students and these important elements were missing in Opening doors to college.
A number of the FIG members have been working diligently on a story board and costing for a film to be made at KCC to introduce and encourage faculty to include students with intellectual disabilities in their classrooms. With this in mind our own forthcoming short documentary will include all stake holders!
As is often the case the FIG meeting ran way over the hour as members enjoyed discussing the film at length!
