12th Annual Multiple Perspectives Conference
"Experience Understood in Image, Poetry, Narrative, and Research"
April 24 & 25, 2012
OSU Columbus Campus
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
8:30am-10:00am - Concurrent Sessions
Session A: Open Educational Resources: Accessibility's Achilles Heel
Stephen R. Acker, Research Director, The Ohio Digital Bookshelf, OhioLINK; Ian MacConnell, Creative Director, OH-TECH; John Magill, Executive Director, OhioLINK
Educational learning materials are being developed and offered under Creative Commons Licenses. These licenses make it easy to use, modify and share learning materials, often in a no-cost or very low-cost way. Referred to as Open Educational Resources (OER), indexed collections of this content are appearing in a number of repositories, including MERLOT, Connexions, The Florida Orange Grove, and Ohio's Scaffold to the Stars. OER typically are not identified as accessible and often are delivered from inaccessible websites. OhioLINK's Drupal-and metadata-based approaches to these issues will be presented.
Session B: One Prayer: An Endeavor to Create Awareness in India through Poetry, Photography and Theatre
Sathya Gopalakrishnan, Assistant Professor, Department of Agricultural, Environmental and Development Economics, The Ohio State University; Anil Mudgal, Secretary, Arushi; Dr. Rohit Trivedi,Assistant Professor, English, Sarojini Naidu Government Girls' Post Graduate College Bhopal
We propose to share efforts undertaken by Arushi, a non-governmental organization in Bhopal, India, to create disability awareness through the medium of poetry, photography and theatre. "Ek Prarthana" is an effort to reach out to society through a series of posters that reflect the spirit of positivism and progress, with that hope of bringing a change in peoples' attitude.
This seminar will also provide opportunity to interact with educators, researchers and advocates from various parts of the world and will help in building a network that will be immensely useful to Arushi as we expand our efforts.
Session C: Writing Ourselves: Graduate Disability Studies and Feminist Pedagogical Theory
Ally Day, Debanuj DasGupta, Meredith Lee, Elizabeth Lemons; All from the Department of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, The Ohio State University
This panel is intended to be an intermediate-level discussion of each participant's interaction with the growing field of Disability Studies in a graduate classroom about "Writing the Body". During the course, each panel participant produced a project where personal experience was integrated into contemporary debates in feminist and disability studies, creating a complex theoretical analysis of how lived experience enhances our understanding of the academic disciplines of Feminist Studies and Disability Studies. The panel presentations will be short readings of creative nonfiction essay, followed by a discussion of the ways in which personal reflection was integrated into complex theoretical discussion, with insights from feminist pedagogical theorists bell hooks, Gayatri Spivak, Chandra Mohanty, and Patricia Hill Collins.
Session D: If Disability Is the Medium, What Is the Massage?
Mark Willis, Research Coordinator, Office of Research Affairs, Boonshoft School of Medicine, Wright State University
So what is the massage? The presenter finds it in the creative work of blind photographers today who are subverting the conventional roles of gazer and the gazed. That work shows us that in a truly accessible and participatory culture, it is not enough to consume media passively. We need the ability to make media and transform it by putting it on ourselves, not as content to be stared at, but content that can stare back.
10:15am-11:45am - Ethel Louise Armstrong Lecture on Disability in Culture and Art presented by Stephen Kuusisto
"The Craft of Disability: Literature and the Art of Embodiment"
Literature has historically presented disability as a form of abjection and as a life of reduction--the twin components of ableist symbolism. But a new generation of poets and writers with disabilities is now transforming notions of the artful body, imbuing physical difference with powerful new figurative force. Professor Kuusisto will discuss the evolution of disability literature and read examples of writing from the new disability poetics movement.
Nira, Steve's guide dog, is a distinguished graduate of Guiding Eyes for the Blind. She is a $45,000 guide dog and has received two full years of training at Guiding Eyes' national headquarters in Yorktown Heights, NY.
To read excerpts of Stephen Kuusisto's poetry, essays, blog posts and more visit Steve's website.
12:30pm-1:45pm - Lunch and Information Exchange
2:00pm-3:30pm - Concurrent Sessions
Session A: Accessibility in the Mobile eLearning Environment
Ken Petri, Director, Web Accessibility Center; ADA Coordinator's Office; The Ohio State University; Victoria Getis, Director, Digital Union, The Ohio State University; Tingting Lu, Program Coordinator & Usability Expert, University Libraries, The Ohio State University; Stephen R. Acker, Research Director, The Ohio Digital Bookshelf, OhioLINK
Students with print disabilities should derive benefits from mobile access to their learning materials (e.g., textbooks) delivered on eReaders such as the Apple iPod, Amazon Kindle, Android platforms, and laptops/netbooks equal to those of other students. This presentation evaluates the accessibility of digital textbooks formatted as ePub, Daisy, .mobi, MathML, etc.) delivered on a set of eReaders (iPad, Netbooks, Kindle and Barnese and Noble readers.
Session B: Global Village Not for the Prohibited Immigrants: How Globalization Situates the Disabled
Theodoto Ressa, Doctoral Student and Graduate Assistant, The Ohio State University
Capitalism has adjured developing countries into global economic system. Apart from capitalism symbolizing triumph of western hemisphere over eastern and southern hemispheres, capitalism has also grown to symbolize human capital through individual physical strength and ability to accumulate wealth. However, with the emphasis on human capital, do the disabled stand the chance of gaining global citizenship?
Session C: Embodiment - The Experience of Disability: Narratives and Reflections
Tom L. Thompson, Retired Director, Disability Services and Adjunct Instructor, Northern Illinois University
The presenter will share the narratives of several people (individuals with disabilities and families with children with disabilities) who were interviewed about how they have experienced disability psychologically and sociologically.
Session D: Three Presentations: Deaf and Hard of Hearing (DHH) Narratives from the Digital Archives of Literacy Narratives (DALN)
Brenda Jo Brueggemann, Professor, Department of English, The Ohio State University; Krista Bryson, Ph.D. Student, Rhetoric, Composition and Literacy Program, Department of English, The Ohio State University; Kristen Johnson, Ph.D. student, American Literature, Department of English, The Ohio State University
The three presentations offer analyses that attempt to compare similar themes in each of the DHH narratives, revealing larger and more affecting threads.
Technological Tales of (Deaf) Literate Wonder. Brenda's presentation will highlight some of the affordances and drawbacks with various technologies used by deaf/hard-of-hearing people in negotiating literacy in a hearing world. Brief clips from 5 of the contributors to the DALN/DHH collection will be featured and anlayzed.
When Hearing Phenomenology Kicks the Bucket. Kristen's presentation will focus on the education and upbringing of three d/Deaf professional women, and their narratives from the DALN/DHH, to illuminate the importance of visual literacy in their lives, and to argue why we need to unpack the meaning of hearingness in d/Deaf education.
Fighting for Words, Narrating a Deaf Life. Krista will present an analysis of deaf author Terry Galloway’s literacy narrative exploring how narrators explain their literate identities through early formative events as Galloway does in explaining her “fight for language” after her hearing loss as a result of her childhood exposure to language through music and storytelling.
4:00pm-6:30pm - Ethel Louise Armstrong Student Poster Competition
Funded in part by the Ethel Louise Armstrong Foundation Endowment Fund.
4:00pm-6:00pm - The Ohio State University’s President and Provost’s Diversity Lecture and Cultural Arts Series presented by LeDerick Horne
"Beyond Classification"
Classified as neurologically impaired in the third grade, LeDerick has become a successful spoken word poet, playwright, motivational speaker, entrepreneur, and advocate. You can sample LeDerick Horne’s poetry on iTunes; Download a Poem by LeDerick titled “Dare to Dream” [Doc Format | PDF Format] and find out more about his life and work at http://www.lederick.com
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
9:00am-10:30am - Concurrent Sessions
Session A: Two 45-minute STEM presentations
STEM Degrees and Careers for Ohioans with Disabilities
Margo Izzo, Program Director; Chris Andersen, Director, STEM Initiatives; Sarah Priest, Program Coordinator/Ability Advisor; All from the Nisonger Center, The Ohio State University
The Ohio STEM Ability Alliance (OSAA) funded by the National Science Foundation will recruit, retain and graduate STEM students with disabilities in the Dayton-Columbus transect. OSAA will form networks of a university, public schools, and STEM industry to increase the number and quality of students with disabilities pursuing STEM degrees/careers. Such networks or "QUADs" will customize best practices, technology, and interventions into a progressive middle-to-graduate school model that maximizes learning and career opportunities of STEM students with disabilities.
BreakThru: A STEM Mentoring Community in Avatar-Based Virtual Reality for Students with Disabilities
Gerri Wolfe, Ph.D., BreakThru Program Coordinator, University of Georgia
BreakThru combines social networking and virtual communities to encourage students with disabilities to pursue STEM majors. National Science Foundation reports (NSF 1996, 2000, 2004) stress the critical importance of strengthening efforts to recruit and retain students chronically underrepresented in STEM fields. Individuals with disabilities are among the most marginalized of these groups (Wolanin & Steele, 2004) and face significant obstacles and barriers to accessing higher education STEM programs (Burgstahler, 1994; NSF, 2000). Students engage using Avatars to access virtual mentoring, academic, transition, and research assistance.
Session B: Expanding the Pipeline into the Legal Profession for People with Disabilities
Gary Norman, Esq., L.L.M. Civil Rights Commissioner, Md. Commission on Civil Rights; Carrie Griffin Basas, Esq., Visiting Associate Professor of Law, Case Western Reserve University School of Law
The purpose of this facilitated conversation is to identify barriers to and opportunities for success in the legal profession for people with disabilities—from college through law practice. After outlining the disability-related pipeline issues, two experienced lawyers with disabilities will encourage audience participants to generate strategies for making disability a prominent, valued part of a comprehensive diversity agenda for the profession.
Session C: Higher Education and Employment: Is College Worth the Price of Admission?
Laura Cherry Akgerman, M.A., C.R.C., Disability Services Coordinator, Ohio Dominican University and Ph.D. Candidate at The Ohio State University, Rehabilitation Services Program
This presentation compares employment outcomes of Rehabilitation Services Administration (RSA) consumers who do & do not have higher education degrees. National Center on Educational Statistics data will compare college students with disabilities with RSA consumers.
Session D: Workplace Accommodation under the ADAAA
Michelle Crew, Outreach and Training Coordinator, Cleveland Field Office, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)
This interactive workshop will discuss the definition of reasonable accommodation, as well as what’s entailed with the reasonable accommodation process, and the types of accommodations available, including leave and reassignment.
10:45am-12:15pm - Concurrent Sessions
Session A: Updates from the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights
Staff from the Cleveland Regional Office, U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights (OCR)
This session will provide an overview of the Office For Civil Rights’ responsibilities and activities under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act and Title II of the ADA as amended. The past year has seen both significant changes in regulations and a number of Dear Colleague letters. Make sure you are up to date on the changes and bring your questions for the ample Q & A.
Session B: Visiting Disability: Mapping Journeys of Accidental Tourists
Alex Fabrizio, MFA Student, Department of English; Creative Writing, Poetry; Kate Mollohan, Doctoral Student, School of Teaching and Learning, STEM Education (Life Sciences specialty); Deborah Petrone, Doctoral Student, School of Teaching and Learning, Language, Education and Society (Literacy Studies); All from The Ohio State University
This panel maps personal experiences as "accidental tourists" who have temporarily experienced disability in order to address abstract implications and offer strategies for productively engaging in this transition.
The panel will be structured to include both critical discussion and presentations from their creative works. The presentation will be meaningful to both scholars in the field of disability studies and the general public with any interest in the disability experience, both living it and talking about it.
Session D: Gimme (Independent) Shelter: A Roundtable Discussion with HUD
Moderator: Marian Lupo, J.D., Ph.D., Fellow, Graduate Interdisciplinary Specialization in Disability Studies, The Ohio State University
Panel Participants: Theresa Lupo, Supervisory Project Manager; Johanna Ryan, CPD Representative, Community Planning and Development Division; Francis Smith, Enforcement Branch Chief, Fair Housing & Equal Opportunity Division; AND Jeri Mahone, Public Housing Revitalization Specialist, Public Housing Division; all from the Columbus Field Office, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
Inspired by response to the 2011 Keys to Housing Options conference, this session brings housing experts from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to the table to discuss the nuts and bolts of independent living, focusing especially on the mechanics of financing independent housing choices.
12:30pm-1:45pm - Lunch and Information Exchange
2:00pm-2:45pm - Concurrent Sessions
Session A: We're All in This Together: Higher Education Personnel and Students with Disabilities
Laura, Cherry Akgerman, M.A., C.R.C., Disability Services Coordinator at Ohio Dominican University; PhD Candidate at The Ohio State University, Rehabilitation Services Program
This presentation examines Academic Advising and student engagement, and how it relates to positive outcomes (i.e., retention, academic performance, and involvement in community, service,) and eventually employment. We will discuss the positive correlation between education and earnings, and discuss different levels of education, and why education is so important.
Session B: Access or Segregation/ADA Law or Individual Need?: A Visual Presentation of Poetry and Image
Chanika Svetvilas, MFA Interdisciplinary Arts candidate, Goddard College
Through video and autoethnography, I will focus on disability literacy. Additionally, I call into question how ethics are put into practice when confronted by institutional power structures that function without acknowledging individual need in the face of policy. How do we act as global citizens and as interdependent human beings that allows for inclusive access that is not only determined by accommodation but rather our attitudes?
Session C: Ohio Disability Vote Coalition: An Appointment with History
Marian Lupo, J.D., Ph.D., Fellow, Graduate Interdisciplinary Specialization in Disability Studies, The Ohio State University; Brett Harbage, ADA Coordinator, Ohio Secretary of State; Sue Hetrick, Coordinator, Ohio Disability Vote Coalition
Part video, part presentation, part discussion, this session will reflect upon the progress, setbacks, and strategies for full civic participation for voters with disabilities in this long-overdue appointment with history.
Session D: Taking Charge of Our Own Social Image
Lisa Sullivan, Transportation Coordinator, Disability Connection West Michigan
As people with disabilities, we must do our part to forge a positive social image for everyone who appears to be "different" from the norm. As advocates, we are responsible for instilling the self-confidence which forms the foundation necessary for constructing a positive social image. In this discussion, the presenter will draw on her experiences as a person with a disability and an advocate to offer insights for persons with disabilities and advocates designed to help us work together in creating a world where "different" is o.k.
3:00pm-4:30pm - Ken Campbell Memorial Lecture presented by Marilyn Bartlett
"Her Own Voice: The Impact of 'Bartlett' on Disability Law and Policy"
Dr. Bartlett was invited to give the Ken Campbell Memorial Lecture on Disability Policy and Law. She discussed her personal journey as a dyslectic person, her impressions and the legal intricacies of her law suit against the New York Board of Law Examiners (2001). She also discussed her views of how her case has influenced American society and education. And, finally, she will make some recommendations for law and policy still need to be addressed. Enjoy her wit and charm as she makes you laugh and cry while she shares her story.
