Dear Campus Community,
During October, we celebrate Disability Awareness and Employment Month at UC Berkeley. Our campus is proud to continue a tradition of educating and employing disabled people. The centering of disability on our campus is due in large part to our historical role as the home of the disability rights movement, dedicated disabled student activism, as well as allyship from non-disabled faculty and staff. Our disabled student population has increased by 158% in eight years; over 20% of our faculty, staff, and students self-report as disabled people. Five thousand disabled students are registered with the Disabled Students’ Program (DSP), 36% of whom are underrepresented minorities (URM). We are seeing the culmination of 60 years of work on this campus to integrate diverse disabled people into higher education.
20th Anniversary of Disability Studies Minor
The Disability Studies Minor program is celebrating its 20th anniversary. It was the first such program in the nation, founded by Berkeley faculty Ray Lifchez, Susan Schweik, and Tom Collington. Disabilities Studies programs are now common across the United States. The Center for Independent Living (CIL) is also celebrating its 50th anniversary. CIL was founded in the City of Berkeley by disabled people, including UC Berkeley students and staff such as disability public intellectual, luminary, and Berkeley alum Ed Roberts; Charles Grimes, a wheelchair technologist in the Physically Disabled Student Program; and Susan O’Hara, who led the campus Disabled Student’s Residence Program. There are now approximately 400 independent living centers nationwide and similar programs in 20 countries.
Disability Justice
Our campus community continues to push and work for disability justice. This year, the University permanently funded a significant increase in Disabled Students’ Program(DSP) specialist positions, including another graduate student specialist and a mental health specialist. Disabled campus members and Disability Access & Compliance (DAC) created and launched an emergency evacuation self-identification survey and consultation service; hundreds of responses have been received, and dozens of consultations given or scheduled. The University committed $2 million dollars to an Information Technology (IT) barrier removal project and the development of an IT Accessibility program. The Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs is co-chair of the University of California Systemwide Advisory Workgroup on Students with Disabilities, a group of UC subject matter experts, students, staff, and faculty who are responsible for making recommendations to campus and systemwide leaders on policy changes and/or programmatic improvements to better support students with disabilities.
Celebratory Events
We will be hosting several disability awareness events during October. Some highlights include the opening of the Disability Cultural Community Center(Oct. 25), Jefferson Memorial Lectures: “The Status Quo Loves To Say No”: Disability Rights and the Battle against Structures of Exclusion with disability rights activist and Berkeley alum Judith Heumann (Oct. 26), and an all-day event reflecting on the 40th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision Board of Education v. Rowley (Oct. 28), which set a standard for support for disabled students in public schools. While not on campus, some nearby events include the CIL50 Independent Living Summit (Oct. 19–21) and the Superfest Disability Film Festival (Oct. 22–23). Many more events can be found on the Disability Awareness and Employment Month webpage.
We also wanted to share some reminders for holding your own accessible events this month (and every month):
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Include language in your advertising identifying whom to contact for accommodations;
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Know how to provide ASL (American sign Language) and CART (Communication Access Realtime Translation) on request;
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Let guests know about the Loop—our transport system for people with mobility involvement;
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Consult with Disability Access & Compliance on creating accessible events.
Campus Disability Resources and Programs You Can Use All Year Long
In addition to the Disabled Students’ Program (DSP) and Disability Access & Compliance (DAC), we have several resources on campus that support the disability community. This includes the Disability Cultural Community Center (DCC), the Staff Alliance for Disability Access (SADA), the ASUC Disabled Students’ Commission, Disability Rights Project, Graduate Assembly’s Disabled Students’ Advocacy Project, and the Workers Rights Disability Law Clinic. We also have programs available such as Rec Sports’ Inclusive Recreation, Be Well at Work’s Disability Management, and the Disability Lab.
We hope you will join us this month not only to learn about creating a more disability-inclusive campus but to celebrate the disability community’s legacy and continuing struggle to improve UC Berkeley and the world for all disabled people.
In community,
Dania Matos (she/her/ella)
Vice Chancellor for Equity and Inclusion
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Ella Callow (she/her/hers)
ADA/Section 504 Compliance Officer, Office of Disability Access & Compliance
Eugene Whitlock (he/him/his)
Chief People and Culture Officer
Lisa Garcia Bedolla
Vice Provost for Graduate Studies & Dean of the Graduate Division
Martha Velasquez (she/her/hers)
Interim Executive Director / Associate Director, Disabled Students’ Program
Oliver O’Reilly (he/him/his)
Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education
Stephen C. Sutton (he/him/his)Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs
Victoria Plaut (she/her/ella)
Vice Provost for the Faculty