This lively and productive last meeting of 2023 on December 3rd included 17 members:  5 faculty, 3 students (including from the Melissa Riggio Program (MRHEP) and 9 administrators. This allowed for all stake holders to discuss issues around the upcoming CUNY Unlimited roll out and to introduce themselves and their work. In particular, Dean Bondar explained her current work with the MRHEP and Aida Wanis was welcomed-the new administrator for MRHEP introduced herself.

Other topics that were covered included:

The timing of the CUNY Unlimited roll out

Melissa Riggio students participating in education fieldwork with the support of a mentor – part of the Education strand

Alternative assessment in all audited courses for MRHEP students

Employment for students without a high school diploma, the Florida model, and how it relates to NY State

Report from the INHEF Conference in Corke, Ireland.  Sue Carpenter was a keynote speaker with Michael Lettman a student from the MRHEP contributing too.

The meeting as always ran over time and ended with the singing of ‘Winter Wonderland’ !

At our first FIG Meeting of Fall 2022 (9/19/22 at 3pm), we had 11 people attend. Margot updated us on her academic studies at PSU Harrisburg – Margot, and we met Safia, a 2016 grad from MRHEP. Gigi playhouse – tough finding a job. Also Karen Fung updated us on her club called “Students 4 Students” for students with or without disabilities to find a supportive and social place.  

Stella gave us a CUNY Unlimited update, including that Hostos, BMCC, and Queensboro are currently in a process of rollout. Stella asked about KCC’s rollout and was told we need a person to coordinate CUNY Unlimited, but that KCC cannot afford to hire someone for the position. Hostos had someone already working in the college do the job on a PT basis, and Laura Armour is willing to do that at KCC (thanks Laura!). KCC needs to fill out application with NY State DOE, and then we expect 2-3 months to process it. Could be a Spring rollout if all goes well, fingers crossed.

Lisa gave us an employment advocacy update related to creating a sequence of courses for the MRHEP Education strand and later potential employment. The idea was to get NY State to create a new classroom-assistant type position that MRHEP students without a traditional high school diploma could work within after graduating and completing this strand.

Sue talked about the growing European movement for inclusion, and on Oct. 27-28th there will be a Salzburg Conference – and everyone is welcome to attend. European colleagues are getting together with U.S. colleagues. In addition, Sue has an upcoming INHEF presentation (with Michael Lettman)!  This will take place in Republic of Ireland (south) in November. 20 colleges in Ireland formed a forum in 2019, many privately funded through charities. These programs will be government funded! The collectively lobbied their government. The IHE UK group that Sue started will form a not-for-profit charity that will allow the work to continue on an institutional level.

Finally, it was discussed that it would be good to strengthen our relationship with Students Unlimited in whatever way we can, and for a couple of us to attend a 4pm Weds. Meetings of Students Unlimited to meet them and talk about possible collaborations on mutual activities and support. And we shared the good news that the Disability Pride Parade is Back in NYC! on Sunday, October 2, 2022. 10am-12pm, Madison Square Park to Union Square Park. http://disabilitypridenyc.org/

CUNY Unlimited 2^nd 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!