[NABS-L] September Discussion Starter (Roanna Bacchus)

[Ben Fulton]

Hi,

I have an experience that I think is rather germain to this discussion.

While attending law school, in my first year of studies, I realized that the material was not very accessible. There were recorded lectures mounted on an online platform that required a mouse pointer to hit the play button. I tried virtualizing the cursor on Jaws and worked with other members of the tech department, but it was beyond the ability of the I.T. department, and ultimately became an administrative issue.

The law school was also undergoing an introduction of mixed platform, and required online content. There were these tests that had to be done online, but many of the buttons were unlabelled, and the whole format was not very blind friendly. 

There were also problems with power point presentations not being made available, and online pdf files that lacked OCR, and while I got quite good at converting my own documents I met other students who lacked either the software, technological ability, or both, to manage many of the inaccessible documents. In fact, I had to spend a fair amount of time and resources to be able to convert as many documents as I did. 

I could go on, but the long and short of it is that I found there were a number of areas that the University needed to focus on, and there was no student organization lobbying for them. So, I founded an organization, originally dedicated to improving accessibility for blind law students, we called ourselves the Daredevils in Training, but by the second year we expanded our constitution to include any students requiring accommodations. The organization has now been running for 4 years, and is called Access to Osgoode. There are still a number of areas that need improvement, but the admin did change the online recording platform, and it is accessible, although still a little glitchy. They also made some physical changes to the building, like tile markings, and audio elevators. The one area I'm hoping admin will come around on is having a single point person that students can go to when getting their accommodations. Right now students have to go to the disability office, and then get a letter that goes to student services, and then contact the library services. Then, students have to co-ordinate between their professors and the library services, sometimes with a T.A. thrown in depending on the professor. This just made a lot of extra running around. They have a counsellor for the department, but it isn't part of that persons job to manage accommodations. So, I'm hoping the lobbying will have an effect on the way the school provides accommodations, so as to take the burden off students that are already dealing with quite a bit.

Hope this helps,
Ben




.___________________
Hello Everyone,
	I think this is a great topic for discussion as well! I will detail two experiences: rushing the Kappa Sigma Fraternity and competing on the university's parliamentary debate team:
Greek Life
	Greek life itself is chock-filled with access challenges?everything from the cultural attitudes of the smartest, most athletic, or most 'lit' rager to the traditions that very rarely take into consideration ability in the diversity expectations. I new this going into the experience my sophomore year of my undergraduate career, and I also had the opinion that I could resolve any access barrier I set my mind to solving (this was not necessarily accurate, but I sure believed it at the time).
	First, let me just say that every chapter of every organization at every university is going to be unique. Let me also say though that there is no fraternal experience quite like that of Kappa Sigma. From the undergraduate brothers at the University of Nevada, to those in other chapters, and even the alumni volunteers: every man was willing to make a change to ensure equal access. Sure, they had craptastic expectations, and sure, they often did things that had me saying "hey, yeh  jerk...did you even think before you did or said that?" But often it came back to education, sharing my Federation philosophy, and reminding them, usually through demonstration, that blindness was not a single inhibiting characteristic. Truly, a life changing adventure. I even found an alum, who just so happened to be first vice president of our Washington Affiliate!
Debate
	This one was extremely challenging, but also incredibly rewarding. At the time, I did not have a lot of blindness skills, nor great confidence in my abilities as a blind person. I joined the debate team, who often experiences nationally competitive success. I had no idea what debate consisted of, nor did I know how to do many of the things they wanted me to do?use google docs, speak at 300-400 words per minute, write down argumentation that everyone in the room was spouting, and run around campus like a mad man. I also did not know at that time, like many other things, ability was not something they really ever thought about when it came to their diversity statement.
	I worked with the National Parliamentary Debate Association (NPDA) to develop strategies for incorporating accommodation and accessibility within their tabulation software, postings, and distribution of materials. I also worked with many debaters, who have gone on to law school or graduate school, teaching them about maintaining high expectations.

	Ultimately, when I have joined organizations at my previous institution of higher learning, I always tried to live the federation philosophy as I under stand it. Part of it is maintaining high expectations, part of it is powering forward in the pursuit of equality, opportunity and security, another part of it is patience and love.  I have so many other thoughts, but this is already getting way, way too long.
Love and peace to all of you for this quarter/semester.
Respectfully,
Michael Ausbun


-----Original Message-----
From: NABS-L <nabs-l-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of sophie trist via NABS-L
Sent: Wednesday, September 5, 2018 12:40 PM
To: Roanna Bacchus via NABS-L <nabs-l at nfbnet.org>
Cc: sophie trist <sweetpeareader at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [NABS-L] September Discussion Starter

Hi all,

This is a great topic of discussion. My freshman year, I pledged a Greek organization at my university. I dropped after two years for several personal reasons which I won't go into, but I also dropped in part because of the accessibility barriers. Most of the organization's materials were in print, and what was digital wasn't very accessible. There were a lot of images involved which were not described, and in meetings, powerpoints were rarely described adequately. This organization did a lot of philanthropy in the area of blindness, and I felt their attitude to be negative, that blindness should be minimized and cured. The first nail in the coffin for me was when one of the group's officers described living with blindness as a miserable state, with me in the room. Fortunately, I have found other groups at my school to be much more blind-friendly and accessible.

Sophie

On Sep 5, 2018 7:18 AM, Roanna Bacchus via NABS-L <nabs-l at nfbnet.org> wrote:
>
> Hi Johna thanks for your message. I faced many obstacles while I was 
> in the process of obtaining my Bachelor's degree. My counselor at the Florida Division Of Blind Services refused to pay for my Bachelor's degree because she felt that I did not need a Bachelor's degree. I overcame this by having fiancial aid that covered the purchase of my books for class. My parents paid for my entire Bachelor's degree. My Dbs counselor provided me with the equipment that I used to take notes and complete other assignments.
>
> On Sep 4, 2018 11:57 PM, Johna Wright via NABS-L <nabs-l at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> >
> > Hey, NABSters!
> >
> > I?m Johna, the face behind the social media profiles for NABS. First, I just wanted to let you all know that you?re awesome and you can conquer whatever the fall semester throws at you! Second, I thought I would start a discussion series on the ListServ, as well as social media, in order to get more of our membership involved and talking with each other. So, I?m proposing the following question:
> >
> > Have you ever encountered an access barrier with extracurricular/club/social activities at your school/university? If so, how did you overcome this barrier?
> >
> > Hopefully this discussion gives some of you guys ideas for how to address your owns personal obstacles. I look forward to reading your responses!
> >
> > Cheers,
> >
> > Johna Wright
> > Vice President, National Federation of the Blind Community Service 
> > Division Social Media Chair, National Association of Blind Students 
> > _______________________________________________