Office of Disability Services to kick off awareness month today

IU's Office of Disability Services for Students will host a reception from 3 to 5 p.m. today in the Indiana Memorial Union's Frangipani Room to kick off April as Disabilities Awareness Month.\nThis is the department's first reception of its kind at IU, and Director Martha Jacques said she hopes it becomes an annual event designed to raise awareness of the needs of students with disabilities and the challenges in creating a level playing field for them.\nThe reception will have catered food and feature various opportunities for challenged students to showcase some of their achievements, such as various pieces of art made by the students including poetry, sketches, drawings and other types of literary work.\nDayna Hummel, who works for DSS, said the reception gives a university that prides itself for programs broadcasting the value in diversity a chance to "recognize another diverse population."\nDSS is located in Franklin Hall 096 and serves as a gateway for students with disabilities, whether they have physical, psychological or learning disabilities like Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. \nJody Ferguson, DSS coordinator of learning disability services, said the program currently works with more than 600 hundred IU students in order to help them gain physical access to the campus, including a van service used to transport students with disabilities around campus. \nDSS also works as a mediator between disabled students and faculty members. DSS tries to help maintain standards of academic fairness while giving disabled students the help they need to demonstrate their knowledge in the same way as other students.\n"Whatever the general population gets, we have to ensure that equality exists for students with disabilities as well," Jacques said.\nBut that sounds easier than it really is.\nBuildings on campus like Kirkwood Hall have no access for students using wheelchairs. Paradoxically, the very office on campus providing help for these students isn't seemingly accessible. DSS is located on both the ground and third floors of Franklin Hall. The only way students with wheelchairs can get to the third floor is by one, closet-sized elevator. This one elevator oftentimes has difficulty holding the larger, battery-operated wheelchairs many students use on campus to get around. \nAnd dealing with faculty members sometimes doesn't fall to a happy medium of cooperation.\nFerguson said there are several of her 450 cases where faculty members do way too much and some of her students have to fight tooth and nail for any help they can get.\nDSS staff members all have high hopes for this reception, hoping it can get some word out about the pitfalls they run into when helping to ensure equality for another one of IU's minorities.\n"I think what we would like to accomplish is (to) have students and faculty come and be made aware about students with disabilities," Jacques said.\nA large concern advocates of students with disabilities have is the word choice used to speak about them.\nStacy Stiening, who also works for DSS, said putting people first is a good way to look at it. \nShe said labeling students with disabilities as "disabled students" is an example of how not to use sensitive language. "Students with disabilities" is the correct way to talk about people with disabilities -- keeping people first in mind, said Stiening. By saying they are "disabled students," the speaker puts the focus on their disability and not their humanity.