As a graduate student at Arizona State University in the U.S., I worked with
a student program designed to create dialogues between students with
different identities. The university funded program grew out of a student
organization that began after some African-American students were attacked
along fraternity row. Now the Intergroup Relations Center at ASU has a
director and four or five full-time program coordinators that run a variety
of programs to teach students with different identities how to better
understand and communicate with each other. And yes, disability is part of
it. I was a co-facilitator one semester of a student-driven dialogue of
disabled and non-disabled students. Other semesters have had Deaf/deaf and
hearing students.
While the program's emphasis often seems to be on racial and gender issues,
this is because it was created first to be reactive, and is becoming more
proactive on diversity issues as it gains momentum. The director once told me
that the speeches they give before freshman orientation classes typically
include examples of intergroup conflict, but that he is hard pressed to give
examples on disability because he hasn't heard such examples himself and
because conflict manifests itself differently for different groups and can be
so subtle. (I delighted in sharing a few personal examples of disability
identity issues that can arise, as well as subtle types of conflict like how
disabled persons are often patronized.)
The website for the ASU Intergroup Relations Center is:
http://www.asu.edu/provost/intergroup/index.html
Regards,
Kay Olson
Tempe, Arizona
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|