Tug of WT

2. Tug of WT The Hunt for Disability Culture in Higher Education SIHO Brussels Dr. Linda Ware SUNY Geneseo

3. It is the participants in a culture who give meaning to people, objects, and events . . . . It is by our use of things, and what we say, think, and feel about them—how we represent them—that we give them a meaning. Stuart Hall (1997)

4. Lecture informed by • SUNY Geneseo Courses • “Bodies that Matter” Women’s Studies • “Disability in America” Writing seminar • “Arts, Careers in the Community” • School of Education Curriculum course • Temple University Philadelphia, PA • project evaluator • “Ensuring Higher Education for All” • Three year federally funded project 2008-11 • David T. Mitchell, PI

5. Visible markers of disability abound in the built environment of the modern college campus

7. I Although access to the built environment is mandated on college campuses in the US— compliance remains a contested issue. ACCESS to the curriculum is not a mandated reform and it will likely prove to be a greater challenge than physical access.

8. Within Higher Education Curriculum Disability resides in disciplines that have historically assumed “treatment” approaches to disability and pedagogies that privilege normalization.

9. Psychology, sociology, education, and medicine, all are locations that emphasize “treatment” and “repair” of the “problem” of disability.

10. Text from a former student during his biology lecture My bio professor just referred to a person with MS as a “defective” SUNY Geneseo ‘S

11. Email from a colleague in the psychology department What is the proper usage for mental retardation these days? When I said it this way in class, one of your former students corrected me saying, usage was now either cognitive disability or developmental disability!

12. Disability as deviance is the assumed condition for the inclusion of disability as a topic in Higher Education curriculum.

13. Ensuring Higher Education Opportunity for All 2008-11 5 year federal project awarded to Temple University to ensure students with disabilities will receive a high quality post-secondary education. Linda Ware, SUNY Geneseo Project External Evaluator Project PI: David T. Mitchell Temple U Philadelphia

14. Project Goals • Human Resources will present disability as part of diversity when orienting new faculty • Two semester Humanities Seminar required of all Temple students will include themes related to disability as diversity. 3. UDL training & support for faculty & staff

15. With a focus on •the educational problems encountered by students with disabilities; •the identification of disability as an integral part of community and curricular diversity at the university; and •the provision of opportunities for students with disabilities and scholars in Disability Studies to share their knowledge about the social predicament of people with disabilities in an increasingly globalizing context.

16. That disability is at once a question of the body and a question of the built environment makes it a central subject for the humanities—and for the social and natural sciences, and thus for new forms of cross-disciplinary study. Michael Berube, 2002. Afterword, “If I should live so long.” Disability Studies Enabling the Humanities. Snyder, Brueggemann & Garland-Thomson (Eds.)

17. Throughout the Temple project Disability Studies was a tool . . . Encourages students, faculty & staff to explore the social meanings, symbols, and stigmas attached to disability identity and asks how they relate to enforced systems of exclusion and of oppression . . .

18. Disability Studies •Challenges the belief that disability is natural and timeless, rather than culturally constructed; •Recognizes that disability is far too complex to be understood by any one field or discipline alone; •Promotes interdisciplinary engagement on disability throughout higher education in other than medical situations.

19. Enforced systems of exclusion & oppressionocations of Disability • •19th Century charity systems •Institutions (largely scientific) • Disability Research Industry • Sheltered Workshops • Academic research trends • ALL sites where disabled people have been deposited against their will. • Sharon L. Snyder & David T. Mitchell, 2006. Cultural Locations of Disability. U Chicago Press.

20. Authenticating Cultural Modes • Disability Rights Movement • Disability Culture • Independent Living Movement • Disability Arts (visual, performance, blogs, films, virtual worlds, etc.) • All sites where disabled people willfully participate & parlay their unique identities into sources of strength, not deficiency.

22. More than a ‘Simple Splice’ ? . . . disciplinary shifts in academe begin with clear recognition of the politicized nature of such efforts— that disciplinary fields are “in” politics—is a given.

23. DSE interrogates • Exclusive ownership of disability by special education • Questionable outcomes for P-12 sped programs (pullout, segregated placement) • Failed implementation of P-12 inclusive education (mandated reform) • “Gaze avoidance” in HE as we rarely consider the history, politics, sociology, or cultural aspects of disability

24. Wxpet Disability Culture in Higher Education… on the move!!!

25. Handbook of Social CulturalFoundations. Steve Tozer, et al. Routledge Press 2010