[nabs-l] Finding a niche in campus orgs

[Arielle Silverman]

Unfortunately, orgs that work with marginalized populations aren't
always inclusive. My best friend is blind and when she tried to
volunteer for an org that provides therapeutic horseback riding for
children with disabilities, she was treated very rudely and not
allowed to be a volunteer without extensive supervision. It is sad,
but sometimes groups that have a mission of helping others aren't
motivated to include the types of people they help as equal members of
their group. It's important to look closely at the attitudes of any
service group and see if it's one that really cares about empowering
people or if it's more interested in giving handouts or generating
sympathy. For example, I think any group that uses pity or sympathy to
raise funds or attract volunteers will probably not be a good one for
a blind person to join and be fully included. My synagogue growing up
had a youth group that had volunteers staff a retreat for kids from
low-income families, whom they referred to as "under-privileged"
children. I remember hearing their spiel about the retreat, aimed at
getting youth volunteers to be counselors, and they said a lot of
things about how horribly deprived these kids' lives are. While some
of their statements might have been true, I found their whole tone to
be very condescending and it turned me off from signing up. My sister
worked the camp and she said that during one activity when the kids
were talking about their dreams for the future, a bunch of them said
they wanted to be counselors for the camp and it was so sad that they
never could do that since the camp recruited counselors from our
wealthy synagogue and not from the low-income areas where these kids
lived. Going off topic a bit there, but my point is that some service
groups unfortunately thrive on highlighting the differences between
the people who serve and the people who are served, when in reality I
think people who receive service should be allowed and invited to give
it back. An organization that empowers people rather than keeping them
down in order to help them is one that will probably be more inclusive
of blind volunteers. Of course, within any organization there will be
folks who just instinctively get it and others who won't, and if you
run into an org that is intolerant for any reason, keep looking and
you will find another one that is accepting. But in some ways,
non-disability orgs may be more inclusive than those aiming to help
the disabled. Just my thoughts.

Arielle

On 4/7/14, minh ha <minh.ha927 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Kaiti,
>
> I totally sympathize with where you are coming from. Being  a part of
> student organizations is not an easy thing, especially when we need
> accommodations to participate fully in what's going on. The most
> important thing is setting up clear boundaries regarding what you can
> and cannot do. I'm just thinking that when you were using your vision
> to do the best that you could with the google docs/spreadsheets,
> people in your fraternity had the mistaken impression that it is all
> accessible to you, and when you couldn't perform your tasks due to its
> inherent inaccessibility, they were really confused at why you
> couldn't suddenly do your job. With the organizations that I am in
> now, I make sure to have a conversation with the president or whoever
> is in charge of the communication system beforehand and let them know
> clearly what my needs are. I have found that once I explain things to
> them in a way they can sort of understand, they are more willing to
> make changes on my behalf. I don't know if this is a thing at other
> universities, but at my school "lunch dates" are huge and it's an
> awesome way to get to know members of an organizations or just
> interesting people on campus on a more personal level. Like it's not
> weird here to say to someone, lets grab lunch/coffee/dinner sometime,
> even if you only know them a little bit through a student org. This
> could be something you might try to meet more people. And the
> suggestions you gave about other organizations you could join are
> great ones; I think community service groups like Best Buddies are
> generally more accepting just because they work with marginalized
> populations so they have a better grasp on inclusion.
>
> Also, I'm just wondering what technology you are using? Google drive
> is not the greatest thing to work with, but it's getting better and
> better every day and I have actually managed to read and add things to
> existing documents that people send me. I am using Jaws 14 with the
> latest version of firefox. I can navigate around a shared folder
> someone send me, choose a document and read it as well as edit. This
> could be something that you look into. I hope all this helps, and just
> know everything will work out and that they're going to get better. :)
>
> Cheers,
> Minh
>
> On 4/7/14, Kaiti Shelton <crazy4clarinet104 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hi all,
>>
>> First, I feel like this fraternity I am in deserves some explanation.
>> It is not your typical sorority which girls join for social reasons.
>> This is a professional music fraternity for women, and although it is
>> not exclusively open to music majors, all members are there because
>> they have a sincere interest in music.  These are the people I go to
>> class with, and spend the majority of my time with in general since
>> music students spend at least 75 percent of their time in the music
>> building every day.
>>
>> It was a little difficult, because at the end of last year my member
>> in training class was allowed to come to the last meeting of the year,
>> since we had been initiated and were oficial sisters by that point.
>> We were told we could nominate ourselves for appointed positions at
>> that time, and several people said they thought I would be good for
>> one which involves keeping records straight and organizing people to
>> help out at events for the music department.  Being a pretty organized
>> person and good with computers, I agreed that this position would be
>> good for me, and signed myself up.  I was appointed, and started
>> asking questions over the summer about how I could make it work.  My
>> thought was that I could have an excel spreadsheet on my laptop, and
>> just make sure I brought it to all the chapter meetings.  I was told
>> not to do this, because the chapter already had everything on google
>> drive.  I was given a link to a google docs spreadsheet, and used the
>> vision I had to make the form.  I've managed to make this job work
>> with the amount of vision I have, but I still don't have access to
>> things like our calendar, and forms that I personally did not make
>> because I don't know the layout of them, and using my magnifier
>> software can be very confusing if I don't know the layout of the
>> document.  I know when I asked about the excel spreadsheet the
>> president probably just didn't understand, and that since I could make
>> it work my inconvenience was trumped by the need for the chapter, and
>> the job honestly isn't the problem.  It has been really difficult, and
>> people have gotten unnecessarily mad at me for accessibility issues
>> that weren't my fault, but the bigger issues are just a lack of
>> communication in general and the fact that I don't have access to
>> changing documents.
>>
>> I get emails when things are posted, but I just can't access them with
>> jaws since they're all on google docs.  The other problem with getting
>> text coppies of the documents is that they're always subject to
>> change, and do quite frequently, so I don't know how effective getting
>> text coppies of calendars and such at the beginning of the semester
>> would be if things are constantly being moved around and modified.  I
>> tried to talk to our current president, but since she's a music ed
>> major who is student teaching this semester, she hasn't really been
>> responsive to this issue.  I have let our new president know of the
>> issues, and told her that I really just want to problem-solve for the
>> future, but there isn't much she can do in the last few weeks of the
>> semester anyway, and technically she still has not been installed as
>> the new president, so I told her that it isn't something that I expect
>> her to turn her attention to right away by any means.  I also
>> suggested that it might be something the exec board as a whole looks
>> into, so I expect that we'll talk about it over the summer.
>>
>> I do have some friends in the group, so it isn't like I have no one in
>> there to talk to or feel close to, I just don't feel like a part of
>> the group as a whole because even those who know me well seem to think
>> that I haven't done my job as well as I should have, and they
>> obviously didn't think I should have had gotten elected to a position
>> on exec board.  Perhaps I am taking elections a little personally, but
>> my roommate was elected to serve as the chapter's treasurer, and it
>> seems like she's always saying things about exec board. E.G, she said
>> something in passing when we were having a conversation about when to
>> go grocery shopping, and she said, "How about this day, because we'll
>> be out of class early and we won't have exec board to worry about."
>> She knows I don't have any exec board to be a part of, and I know the
>> exec board for our organization does not even meet on that day of the
>> week, so it was just very odd.  The one thing the group I left had
>> going for them was that their online management system was completely
>> jaws accessible.
>>
>> I have also considered joining different groups to try to branch out,
>> even if I stay in this one.  Last semester I had my current roommate,
>> plus another who I was even closer to.  The latter roommate no longer
>> attends my university, and she was kind of like my closest friend on
>> campus.  (We lived on the same floor freshman year, had a bunch of
>> classes together, she already was cool about the blindness stuff
>> because her grandmother had macular degeneration, so she introduced
>> herself and we got really close, and still are from a geographical
>> jdistance).  Next year I will be living in an apartment by myself,
>> since my other roommate will be commuting and I'm kind of hesitant to
>> go into a random roommate situation due to some negative experiences.
>> However, I am an extroverted person, so I'm going to need to be around
>> people and have my apartment primarily be the place where I keep my
>> things and sleep.  I'm thinking of either joining the campus concert
>> committee, which brings a concert from a well-known band to campus,
>> best buddies which is a mentoring club which pairs college students to
>> younger students with developmental disabilities, or colleges against
>> cancer, which raises awareness for the American Cancer Society and
>> organizes Relay for Life on campus.  I think these things are all
>> relevant to my major, and also things I could see myself enjoying.  I
>> have good communication skills and am pretty organized, so  I think I
>> could still be an asset to an organization on campus, even if it isn't
>> this particular one I am in right now.
>>
>> On 4/7/14, Beth Taurasi <denverqueen1107 at comcast.net> wrote:
>>> I hated campus organizations altogether.  I joined mainly because of
>>> political motives, but none of those orgs were accessible, and could not
>>> accommodate me at all.  Anyway, I couldn't rush for sororities because
>>> of blindness and the nonacceptance on campus.
>>> Beth
>>> On 4/7/2014 10:52 AM, Julie McGinnity wrote:
>>>> Ah "the agenda".  I have been officially federationized...  I mean if
>>>> you could have some time in a meeting to talk about how you access
>>>> documents and such.  Lol
>>>>
>>>> On 4/7/14, Julie McGinnity <kaybaycar at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> Hi Kaiti,
>>>>>
>>>>> This sounds like my undergrad experience completely.  Of course, my
>>>>> small liberal arts school didn't have fraternities, but when I tried
>>>>> to get involved with organizations on campus, I had similar
>>>>> experiences.  I agree completely with Arielle.  Finding one or two
>>>>> people to hang out with in the organization will make the experience
>>>>> so much better for you.  Have you asked the leaders if you could have
>>>>> a few minutes on the agenda to speak about how you do things like
>>>>> access documents?  Maybe if they understand that google docs is
>>>>> inaccessible to you, you will come up with some sort of accomidation.
>>>>>
>>>>> I also was friends mainly with those older and younger than I, so I
>>>>> seriously understand this.  I would recommend talking to someone in
>>>>> the organization you trust about your concerns and then consider
>>>>> dropping it if you can't get anywhere.
>>>>>
>>>>> On 4/7/14, Carly Mihalakis <carlymih at comcast.net> wrote:
>>>>>> Good morning, Justin,
>>>>>>
>>>>>>           Good advice, if you are of a belief that working within the
>>>>>> system which is, it sounds like, already stacked against you will be
>>>>>> somehow, effective.
>>>>>> So-called leaders will always have political strings manipulating
>>>>>> their limbs so none of their  actions ought to be taken at face
>>>>>> value.
>>>>>> for today, CarAt 01:28 AM 4/7/2014, justin williams wrote:
>>>>>>> Have you approached the leaders of the fraternity? I'm sure you
>>>>>>> have,
>>>>>>> but
>>>>>>> I
>>>>>>> just have to at least ask.  If so, it does not sound as if they are
>>>>>>> responsive.  If not the leaders, then maybe the advisor.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>>>> From: nabs-l [mailto:nabs-l-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Kaiti
>>>>>>> Shelton
>>>>>>> Sent: Sunday, April 06, 2014 6:31 PM
>>>>>>> To: National Association of Blind Students mailing list
>>>>>>> Subject: [nabs-l] Finding a niche in campus orgs
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Hi all,
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> For the past 2 years I've struggled to find my place in
>>>>>>> organizations
>>>>>>> on
>>>>>>> campus.  I felt the same way in high school, but here is my
>>>>>>> situation
>>>>>>> now.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Freshman year I was in a club for my major, as well as a community
>>>>>>> service
>>>>>>> fraternity.  I ended up leaving that fraternity at the end of my
>>>>>>> freshman
>>>>>>> year because of a few things, but mainly because I felt the chapter
>>>>>>> was
>>>>>>> run
>>>>>>> in a very beaurocratic style, and the same people always did
>>>>>>> everything
>>>>>>> and
>>>>>>> never let those of us who were on the outside do much.  The
>>>>>>> elections
>>>>>>> seemed
>>>>>>> more like a popularity contest, with really personal digs made by
>>>>>>> current
>>>>>>> exec board members against candidates who they did not want to see
>>>>>>> in
>>>>>>> future
>>>>>>> exec board positions.  Though I didn't run for anything, even as an
>>>>>>> outsider, a member just watching and casting my votes, it left a
>>>>>>> bitter
>>>>>>> taste in my mouth.  If that was how it was going to be run, I didn't
>>>>>>> want
>>>>>>> to
>>>>>>> be a part of the organization.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> That spring semester I pledged another fraternity that I liked a lot
>>>>>>> better.
>>>>>>> This one is a professional organization more geared towards my
>>>>>>> major.
>>>>>>> It
>>>>>>> is
>>>>>>> smaller, and still does service, which I like.
>>>>>>> However, I have increasingly felt like I am not a part of the group.
>>>>>>> One of the main problems this year has been a lack of communication
>>>>>>> and
>>>>>>> access to the google docs resources.  Of course, these things work
>>>>>>> fine
>>>>>>> for
>>>>>>> the other 20 members of the chapter who are sighted, but they do not
>>>>>>> work
>>>>>>> for me.  I feel that when I miss a piece of information that was
>>>>>>> posted
>>>>>>> online, or when I don't know to do something because I can't see it,
>>>>>>> people
>>>>>>> are like, "Well, she screwed up again," rather than thinking, "Oh, I
>>>>>>> wonder
>>>>>>> if she didn't see it."
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> This all sounds much more bitter or dramatic than I really feel, but
>>>>>>> I
>>>>>>> am
>>>>>>> a
>>>>>>> bit frustrated by this.  I have good ideas, and can do my job very
>>>>>>> well
>>>>>>> if
>>>>>>> I
>>>>>>> know what is expected of me and have the accessibility to do it.
>>>>>>> However,
>>>>>>> with the google docs system, and the lack of communication I receive
>>>>>>> from
>>>>>>> my
>>>>>>> sisters about visual things they just pick up on naturally, I am
>>>>>>> unable
>>>>>>> to
>>>>>>> contribute in the way I want to.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I think my struggles with these things has also impacted me
>>>>>>> socially.
>>>>>>> We had elections a few weeks ago, and I was the only junior who was
>>>>>>> not
>>>>>>> elected to an exec board position.  I ran for 2, and really wanted
>>>>>>> the
>>>>>>> recording secretary position.  I feel like the issues I had this
>>>>>>> year
>>>>>>> have
>>>>>>> made me seem like I am uncapable of carrying out these
>>>>>>> responsibilities
>>>>>>> to
>>>>>>> my sisters, when they really don't know my situation and never
>>>>>>> asked.
>>>>>>> I
>>>>>>> specifically chose to run for recording secretary because I have
>>>>>>> particular
>>>>>>> experience with this position, and I also know that the minutes are
>>>>>>> taken
>>>>>>> in
>>>>>>> Word Docs and member standing is kept track in a spreadsheet.  I
>>>>>>> would
>>>>>>> have
>>>>>>> run into no technological glitches whatsoever, so this position
>>>>>>> would
>>>>>>> have
>>>>>>> been great for me.  I also gave up membership in other clubs and
>>>>>>> musical
>>>>>>> ensembles in order to make time for an exec board position should I
>>>>>>> have
>>>>>>> gotten one, so I'm thinking false social perceptions have gotten in
>>>>>>> my
>>>>>>> way.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I also feel socially left out sometimes because not all members of
>>>>>>> the
>>>>>>> chapter will talk to me.  I mean, I'm certainly not expecting to be
>>>>>>> best
>>>>>>> friends with everyone, but some of them just don't even speak to me,
>>>>>>> which
>>>>>>> isn't a good feeling.  And yes, I do try to speak to them.
>>>>>>> They don't openly shun me, and it's not nearly that bad, but unless
>>>>>>> I
>>>>>>> say
>>>>>>> something to them they won't say hi, or ask how I'm doing even when
>>>>>>> we're
>>>>>>> sitting next to each other.  This is not just a chapter issue; the
>>>>>>> people
>>>>>>> this happens with also don't really socialize with me in classes,
>>>>>>> and
>>>>>>> I'm
>>>>>>> one of those awkward people who gets along more with people who are
>>>>>>> older
>>>>>>> and younger than her than with students in my year.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I really don't want to sound whiney, because that was not my intent
>>>>>>> at
>>>>>>> all,
>>>>>>> but I'm wondering how people in similar situations got through these
>>>>>>> issues.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> --
>>>>>>> Kaiti
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>
>>>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> Julie McG
>>>>> National Association of Guide dog Users board member,  National
>>>>> Federation of the Blind performing arts division secretary,
>>>>> Missouri Association of Guide dog Users President,
>>>>> and Guiding Eyes for the Blind graduate 2008
>>>>> "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that
>>>>> everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal
>>>>> life."
>>>>> John 3:16
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Check out my Wordpress blog: denverqueen.wordpress.com or you can reach
>>> me
>>> by skype at denverqueen0920
>>>
>>>
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>>
>>
>> --
>> Kaiti
>>
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>
>
> --
> "All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty
> recesses of their minds, wake in the day to find that it was vanity:
> but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act on
> their dreams with open eyes, to make them possible." T. E. Lawrence
>
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