Disability Mentoring Day (DMD) is officially commemorated on the third Wednesday of every October and is recognized in locations around the world. DMD promotes career development for students and job-seekers with disabilities through job shadowing and hands-on career exploration.
In 2003, several undergraduate students taking a class in disability studies at the University of Washington in Seattle discovered that there wasn't a strong student group on campus working to advocate for students with disabilities. The students thought that members of this campus community should have a stronger voice in promoting accessibility and diversity on campus. So, as a class project, they decided to form such a student organization to promote accessibility and disability activism on their campus.
Access For All (AFA) is a student organization at the University of Minnesota-Duluth made up of individuals interested in disability rights and issues. AFA hosts a series called "I am who I am" which features an individual from the community who has a disability speaking at a campus forum each month. The speakers share information about their disabilities, employment issues, accommodations, challenges, and successes.
The speaker series serves to
Each October during National Disability Employment Awareness Month, the American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD) works with the Department of Labor's Office of Disability Employment Policy to promote Disability Mentoring Day (DMD).
In DO-IT projects such as AccessComputing and AccessSTEM, project staff developed an easy-to-use document called Preparing for Success with Work-Based Learning Experiences. This "work-based learning menu" was developed to be a useful, non-threatening tool in securing employer support for work-based learning offerings to students with disabilities.
ENTRY POINT!, directed by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), is a summer internship program for college students with disabilities. This competitive program places students in internships at NASA, IBM, the National Science Foundation, JPMorgan Chase, the National Institutes of Health, and Texas Instruments. To qualify for an ENTRY POINT!
It is important to design the facility for users with a wide range of abilities and disabilities (e.g., visual, mobility, and hearing impairments; learning disabilities). Getting input from students with various disabilities about how to set up the computer lab can help ensure that specific student needs are met. Make sure that the computer lab offers access to equipment and software and to electronic resources. It is also important that staff are trained to work with students who have disabilities and understand how to use adaptive technology within the lab.
First, the financial aid office can assure that the facilities are safe for a student who is blind or a student with low vision to navigate. Make sure that walking paths in public areas are unobstructed; minimize clutter and protruding objects. Second, make publications, forms, and applications used in the financial aid process available in accessible formats, such as large print, Braille, and an accessible version.
As increasing numbers of people with disabilities pursue educational opportunities at all levels, the accessibility of student organizations and events increases in importance.
My name is Keisha and I am a student at a small Midwestern college. I am blind. My college converted from a telephone registration system to an online registration system. They determined that it was not economically feasible to maintain both systems and discontinued the phone system.
The web-based system my college chose is not accessible to screen readers. Without the phone system I had no way to register for my classes.