Meeting Date
- Office Hours with New Chair, Pam McGuinty!
- Pam has been with with the University for 22 years, most recently in Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
- Pam’s vision for CfDC:
- Continuing to collaborate with disability groups on campus, elevate voices already active on campus, start with working with the CfDC groups that we already have relationships with
- Still looking for a faculty member to co-chair, if anyone is interested
- CfDC is now much more recognized than it was previously (in part due to growing membership, Neubacher award, etc.)
- Grow our voice through collective action - we have a louder voice as a group than we do individually
- Disability parking area on South University (near engineering building) is snowy and icy
- In some places, only one spot is available
- Does CfDC still have a parking working group?
- A lot of this originally came out of the Student IDEA Board recommendations, can review the archives to see who else was working on that
- Improving ability for people to get out of cars in chairs, with stuff, with service animals, etc. would be beneficial
- Near Hatcher, there is only one spot where this type of space was available, and the spot was not available in the ice
- Could raise awareness specifically about weather-related concerns - if the parking exists, make sure it’s available even in the winter
- Communication with medical professionals can be difficult
- Especially for people with hearing loss, and especially when they are masked, and not facing the people they’re talking to
- More generally, masking accommodations can be seen as students asking for “less safe” masking options.
- SSD recently purchased masks for instructors with students who are deaf or hard of hearing
- Dr. O working on clarifying with Campus Health Response Committee that these masks (with windows) aren’t less safe than N95s
- How does Pam define disability?
- Any kind of physical or mental difficulty that means someone needs accommodations
- Disability is diverse
- Councilmember Els Nieuwenhuijsen contributed to UM’s Center for Disability Health and Wellness, including a video about disability
- CfDC could support Neubacher Award Winner Vincent Pinti to expand PCA accessibility for students and other UM community members
- How can we join with more groups, more intentionally, to ensure we continue to be a group that is intersectional and open to a wide variety of disabled communities?
- Pam will start compiling a list of contacts, groups to work with in the future
- Mapping Disability Inclusion
- A prototype of a searchable database of individuals and groups who are working in/related to disability issues
- Opportunity for mentorship and connections, faculty who want to connect about disability research, staff who want to implement changes
- Several rounds of surveys have gone out to get people entered into the survey
- Major limitation is the structure of the website, want to keep the website digitally accessible but currently it has to be updated by hand
- Could potentially get an undergrad or part time staff member to work on this, but may need more funding and/or time
- Stephanie Rosen knows more about the technical aspects and issues of the current website
- The database captures both social and medical models of disability, since people get to create their tags and bios
- Had trainings about social model and the UM Campus climate survey
- Has there been or is there any follow up regarding work connections practices?
- There has not been any follow up but we will circle back on this and provide any updated information