2022 Conference Program

Monday, April 11th Sessions

Disability and Life Satisfaction

Presenters: Michelle R. Nario-Redmond, Thomas P. Dirth, and Jeffrey G. Noel

Drawing from national polls, meta-analyses, and longitudinal studies, this presentation reviews the most powerful predictors of life satisfaction. Many of the most consequential factors that contribute to life satisfaction can be sourced from our own social groups. Research on disability identification illustrates how people can harness collective strength, control and support to enhance wellbeing and improve life outcomes.

"Freekey”: Keys to Freedom - Advancing Personal Assistance Services in Hungary

Presenters: Elizabeth Sammons, Daniel Csángó, Nikolett Rékasi, Veronika Kalász, and Zsuzsanna Kunt

Hungary’s personal assistance system has evolved since Communist times, but not to the satisfaction of leaders in the disability community. The “Freekeys” of Budapest will outline the current situation, as well as sharing current and future strategies to address both social and political/financial issues that create barriers to self-determination.

THINKCOLLEGE- How people with intellectual disability advocate

Hear the stories students with intellectual disability tell about their experiences learning about being a political advocate and the opportunities they had to put their knowledge into practice with our state and countries leadership.

SDS -Challenges and Possibilities in Researching and Practicing Disability Studies in France

Presenters: Cara Ryan, Charlotte Dewarumez-Minot, and Manon Ménard

Our presentation will examine the challenges and possibilities surrounding the research and practice of disability studies in contemporary France. Scholars have hypothesized that the French republican ideal of universalism has made the implementation of disability studies particularly challenging in France, and sociologists have argued that the French neurodiversity movement has not emerged(Chamak et al. 2013). And yet we are witnesses to, and in some cases participants in, changes emerging in real-time, especially in regards to autistic activism. In our presentation, we will highlight examples of grassroots activism that provide a reason to be optimistic about the future of disability justice in France, including the collaborative public art/design project “Je suis autiste et…” developed by Charlotte Dewarumez-Minot, a PhD student in Art History and vice-president of the autistic student association La Bulle !, and Manon Ménard, a PhD student in Design and ally to La Bulle !.

SDS- The Ableism of Research Ethics Reviews: Consent, Capacity, and Vulnerability

Presenters: Hannah Quinn and Rebecca-Eli Long

Ostensibly in place to protect research participants, research ethics reviews often perpetuate ableism. This discussion group seeks to share experiences, strategies, and commiserations around research ethics reviews involving disabled people as participants and researchers. Questions to be posed include: 1) How are disabled people classified as a vulnerable population by ethics boards at different universities? 2) What strategies do researchers use to negotiate ableist concepts of “consent” and “capacity?” 3) What are our obligations as scholars to our participants when negotiating ableist institutional structures? The facilitators will share their experiences and open to audience discussion about what it means to do ethical research in the context of disability. We encourage attendees to reflect on disability as a lived experience, a research orientation, and as grounds for ethics. Come listen, share your own experiences, and dream about/collaborate on alternative research relations.

Disability and Intersectionality in Exchange: Resources Exploring Identity Abroad

Presenters: Johileny Meran, Ashley Holben, Geraldine Dang, Istou Diallo, and David Sharif

Going abroad often challenges us to explore identity in surprising ways. In this session we will learn from the experiences of international exchange alumni, whose stories touch on the dynamics and interplay of disability, nationality, race, ethnicity, gender and more.

My Disability Identity: If I Don’t Care, Why Do You?

Presenter: Jane Jarrow

Nowadays, we celebrate the fact that so many in our community are ready to stand up and say that they are “disabled and proud.” But what if the PWD sees their disability as unimportant to their identity? Are we willing to allow folks the freedom NOT to embrace their disability?

THINKCOLLEGE- Self-determination, Skills, methodology for students to learn how to make good decisions and set goals using a self-determination formula sheet

Presenters: Dr. Yvonne Michali and Sydney Rondeau

Young adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities and autism who have more developed self-determination skills can make a more successful transition from high school to adult life. However, abstract concepts are often difficult to understand and apply to the lived experience. This presentation will briefly define the nine skills of self-determination and provide a formula sheet that aides in applying skills to life decisions.

SDS- “We Are Each Other’s Medicine”: Health Equity Collaborative with “Radical Welcome”

Organized Discussion Panel: Carol Moeller, Hasshan Batts, Abby Lechter, José Rivera, Carolyn Hoffman, and Charlene Fulton

All participants are members of the Health Equity Activation and Research Team (HEART), funded by the Patient Centered Outcome Research Institute (PCORI), in Allentown, Pennsylvania. This interactive discussion/workshop shares collaboration across communities – community action, health networks, higher education borders. We share reflections from those multiply minoritized by disability, incarceration, re-entry barriers, and health challenges, thinking together toward understanding and solutions. We center minoritized voices of people “closest to the pain,” those often deemed “disposable,” foregrounding disability justice values such as intersectionality, collective access, cross-movement and cross-disability activism, and celebrating the value of wholeness of each person. We offer “radical welcome” for authentic, inclusive presence.

SDS- Vizibilizing Disability in Higher Education

Jonathan Lower, Intertwined: History, the Blues, and Teaching Disability into the Humanities

Elizabeth Tacke, When ‘(Dis)ability’ isn’t in the Course Title: Centering a Critical Disability Studies Pedagogy Across the Curriculum.

Elaine Cagulada, Wondering Within EDI: Belonging to Equity, Diversity, Inclusion Differently Through Disability Studies

Including Women with Disabilities in STEM Faculty Careers

Presenters: Brianna Blaser and Sheryl Burgstahler

There is rarely meaningful inclusion of disability in broadening participation in STEM efforts. We will share lessons learned and best practices for ensuring that departments are inclusive of women with disabilities through AccessADVANCE, a project that aims to increase the participation of women with disabilities in STEM faculty careers.

Speaking Truth to Power: Thriving in The Margins of The Academy

Presenters: Katherine Betts and Enjie Hall

This presentation will use ethnographic story telling to tell the leadership narratives of two Higher Education administrators, and how the intersectionality of race, gender, and disability have uniquely shaped their trajectories. Presenters share how they reclaimed power from the margins and used this positionality as a place of activism and transformation.

THINKCOLLEGE- How students use the self-determination formula sheet to create the student directed person centered plan

The Person-Centered Plan (PCP) is a student lead meeting that is a powerful tool in guiding the young adult with disabilities and the support team in the journey to student self-awareness of matching strengths, preference, interests, and needs to life experiences. Learn how the self-determination formula sheet explained in a previous session can be used by the young adult with disabilities to direct and maximize learning opportunities when preparing for adult life.

SDS Town Hall

All conference participants and SDS members are encouraged to attend the SDS Town Hall. SDS board members will be present to listen and dialogue about issues related to building a vibrant and future-oriented SDS. This might include soliciting feedback about: strategic planning to grow/develop SDS in new ways, possibilities for targeted engagement with a variety of individuals/organizations to expand membership and participation in SDS, and the creation of member-led efforts to amplify perspectives and experiences that have historically been marginalized in SDS.

Ken Campbell Lecture on Disability Advocacy, Policy and Law

Monday, April 11th, 4:00 PM-5:45 PM ET

Speaker: John Wodatch

John Wodatch is a disability rights attorney, with over 50 years of experience.  Forty-two of those years where in the Federal government, where he authored the government’s comprehensive disability rights regulations and created and led the Department of Justice’s office in charge of enforcing them.

He was the chief author of the first Federal regulations implementing section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973; one of the drafters of the Americans with Disabilities Act and chief Autor of the ADA’s implementing regulations and served on the U.S. delegation to the United Nations that helped develop the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

Tuesday, April 12th Sessions

Audio Description: For AND BY People Who Are Blind

Presenters: Joel Snyder and Chris Snyder

Chris Snyder, a blind advocate for audio description, is a talented voice artist and audio editor; Dr. Joel Snyder (no relation) was a pioneer in the development of audio description, circa 1981. They will present a session on how to involve people who are the principal consumers of audio description

An Organizational Lived Experience: What Drives Effective Intersectional Advocacy

Presenters: Kerstin Sjoberg and Dr. Patricia Larkins Hicks

Using an interview and discussion format, this session will engage the audience in thinking about the complexities of intersectionality and how to build effective intersectional disability rights advocacy. Through the lens of organizational lived experience, the audience will learn how trust and organizational culture impact effective intersectional advocacy.

THINKCOLLEGE- Living away from home as a college student with intellectual disability

Many college students move away from their family home when it is their time to attend college. This is no different for students with intellectual disability attending some of Ohio's inclusive postsecondary programs. This session will share the lived experience of students who have moved to their college campus to continue their education.

SDS- India in the Time of Covid-19: A Survey of Precarities

Organized Paper/Presentations Panel: Shilpaa Anand, Vandana Chaudhry, Hemachandran Karah, Nandini Ghosh and Shubhangi Vaidya

We discuss how pandemic related precarities played out in different realms of the Indian context. In the absence of governmental infrastructure, not-for-profit organizations and disability networks collaborated to offer survival support to disabled people in rural areas. Social solidarities and collective building efforts emerged. Similarly, other forms of kinship and familial care evolved and disrupted normative care relations. Disabled people's capacity to render care and assume agency became noticeable. With the pandemic's proliferation of digitization and faith in its access potential. Reflecting on digital inclusion and exclusion the panel discusses the varied nature of inaccessibility experienced by disabled people living at the margins of society and technology. We also acknowledge that digital access in a learning environment produces disembodied relationalities given its special affinity for productivity and its cognitive orientation.

SDS- Ableism and Medical Establishment

Individual Presentations Panel

Maria Rovito, “It’s All in Your Head”: A Feminist Disability Studies Autocritical Account of the Gaslighting of Endometriosis Pain*

Tania Beigh, Reproductive Health Experiences of Women with Disabilities: Exploring the Inaccessibility Through Intersectionality*

Tabetha Violet, Fibromyalgia is Hard to Explain: The Labor of Sharing Illness Realities

Tell It Like It Is - Claiming Space in the Arts

Presenter: Helyn Marshall

I'll share the power of naming and claiming spaces for disability access in the nonprofit arts and university settings. How can we, with little-to-no budget, staff shortages, and frequently outdated structures for physical and digital access, flip the script and make it work? (Spoiler alert: it takes time and lingo.)

Update from the Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights

Presenters: Judith Risch and Mary Lou Mobley

The attorneys who lead OCR’s National Digital Accessibility Team will discuss the types of allegations they handle under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act and Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act, as well as how they identify barriers to access for people with disabilities, resolution strategies, and they work with website vendors. Learn how OCR views and resolves hundreds of post-secondary technology accessibility allegations each year. Get tips on how to stay in compliance and learn promising practices.

Judy Risch has been an attorney with the Office for Civil Rights for over 15 years. Currently she is the co-lead of OCR’s National Digital Access Team. Before coming to OCR , she finished with a PhD in Educational Administration and her law degree. Part of her work experience also includes teaching in special education and development of on-line instruction. Her favorite part of her job is helping people serve students better and preventing problems before they happen.

Mary Lou Mobley graduated from Duke University in 1990 with a law degree and a Master’s in Philosophy. After clerking for a Federal judge, she joined the Federal government in Washington, DC, as a Trial Attorney in the U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, Disability Rights Section, where she earned numerous awards including the John Marshall Award for Distinguished Service. In 2006, she moved to Denver and joined the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, where she currently serves as Co-Lead of OCR’s National Digital Access Team.

THINKCOLLEGE- Alumni of Ohio's inclusive postsecondary programs: Where are they now?

Ohio's inclusive postsecondary programs now have students who have graduated. This session will focus on a few of these student's stories. We will hear where they are living, where they are working, and how they are engaging in their community.

SDS - Crip Kinship in the Classroom: Designing for Disability Community and Culture in School

Organized Discussion Panel: Sarah Arvey Tov, Adina Rosenberg and Clark Matthews

Disability kinship and community are spaces are joy and solidarity. Yet disabled students are rarely offered opportunities to experience those connections in school. Classroom instructional practices and curriculum have long been designed to assimilate students with disabilities into nondisabled classroom structures, learning methods, and social skills. These systems dismiss disability identity, erase disability culture and history, and disengage disability community. In this presentation, we will bring together a team of three disabled activists to share ways that they design and implement asset-based pedagogies affirming disability identity and community in media production, special and general education classrooms, and educational research. Presenters will discuss their intersectional and intergenerational collaborations across community, school, and academic settings designing media, curriculum, and research that uplift disability identity and culture.

SDS - Debunking Ableist Representations of Disability Culture

Organized Paper/Presentations Panel: Toni Saia, Sara M. Acevedo, AD Carson, Joseph Stramondo and Jillian Weise

Disabled people compose up to 15% of the world’s population. As such, disability culture is pervasive across the globe. However, given the parallel global presence of ableist oppression, representations of disability culture in pop culture are often distorted by ableism in a way that bolsters, rather than challenges, systems of oppression and harms, rather than supports, disabled people. This panel will analyze some of the ways disability culture is distorted by ableism in mainstream, popular culture and offer some critical interventions that can challenge these misrepresentations. The theorists, practitioners, and artists in this panel will abandon the silos between their disciplines to expand their respective intersectional analyses and find new ways to challenge the status quo. An anthropologist, philosopher, rehabilitation counselor, poet, and rapper will offer a cross-disability and cross-disciplinary perspective that reorients the conversation around disability culture.

Cross-Institutional Histories: University of Connecticut and the Mansfield Training "School"

Presenters: Brenda Jo Brueggemann and Jessica Gallagher

Our collaborative presentation excavates the a historical, rhetorical, cross-institutional, and multiple-identities archeology of the Mansfield Training School (formerly The Connecticut School for Imbeciles at Lakeville from 1860-1914 and then also The Connecticut Training School for the Feebleminded from 1915-1917) and the University of Connecticut.

Creative Communications: Speech-to-Braille in the STEM Classroom

Presenter: Lisa Vogt

How does a deafblind college student gain access to course material in a math or science class? In this presentation I will share my story of how I was able to bridge the communication gap for a student with hearing and vision impairments.

THINKCOLLEGE- What is the Ohio Statewide Consortia working on now?

Learn about what the Ohio Statewide Consortia is working on now. This includes an National Science Foundation Includes Alliance, an evaluation of programs, and a partnership with JPMorgan Chase.

SDS - An Interdisciplinary Approach to Integrating Disability Studies Across the Curriculum

Organized Paper/Presentations Panel With Guided Audience Discussion: Neil Simpkins, Nicole LaBelle and Katie Ward

In this panel, researchers from an interdisciplinary department will share their progress towards building an open access resource for those looking to integrate disability studies in their classrooms. By surveying faculty who teach or desire to teach disability content in their courses as well as students who self-describe as having a disability across a large tri-campus state school system, the researchers will detail the hopes and concerns of both groups with integrating disability studies in classrooms across the curriculum. The panelists will also describe their open-source resource that collects their findings; this resource offers suggested materials, teaching strategies, and research guidance to support instructors who are less familiar with disability culture and disability studies to bring disability-related content into their teaching. With an emphasis on intersectionality, interdisciplinarity, and interrogating diversity, the researchers will offer tools for bringing disability studies into conversation with existing curricula.

SDS - Accessing Disability Film and Media

Organized Paper/Presentations Panel

Slava Greenberg, Is That Really Me? Deadpicturing, Home Movies, and Dysphoria

Linnea J. Hussein, Disabling “Authenticity”: Representations, Ability, and Equal Acting Rights For All

Neta Alexander, Right to Speed-Watch (or, When Netflix Discovered its Blind Users)

Emily Died, “We Buried Your Ashes But Not You”: Illness, Metaphor, and the Feminine Void in Anne Charlotte Robertson’s Reel 80

This panel seeks to complicate ongoing debates around cinema, disability, affect, and accessibility. Our first panelist uses gender dysphoria to bridge disability studies, trans studies, and film theory by exploring home movies in documentaries. The second presentation questions the application of the term “authentic” for nonprofessional performers with disabilities and advocates for a right to be regarded as an actor. As Netflix cited “request from blind users” in order to promote its new feature, our third presenter unpacks its recent controversial attempt to launch a “speed-watching” feature and shows how corporations monetize “accessibility.” Finally, our fourth paper explores the use of illness and metaphor in Anne Charlotte Robertson’s Reel 80: Emily Died to suggest that her mental illness is less a medical condition than a social phenomenon—symptomatic of the class antagonisms and sexism, the grief and pathologies of the world around her. By addressing film and media’s accessibility on the levels of production, consumption, and distribution the panel offers thinking through affect beyond the narrow framework of “viewing.”

Ethel Louise Armstrong Lecture

Tuesday, April 12th, 4:00 PM-5:45 PM ET

Presenter: Emily Ladau

Emily Ladau is a passionate disability rights activist, writer, storyteller, and digital communications consultant whose career began at the age of 10, when she appeared on several episodes of Sesame Street to educate children about her life with a physical disability. Her writing has been published in outlets including The New York Times, SELF, Salon, Vice, and HuffPost and her first book, Demystifying Disability, was published by Ten Speed Press, an imprint of Penguin Random House, in September 2021. Emily has spoken before numerous audiences, from the U.S. Department of Education to the United Nations. Central to all of her work is a focus on and harnessing the power of storytelling as a tool for people to become engaged in disability and social justice issues.