Course on disabilities to be offered spring semester
Beginning spring semester a general education course on disabilities will be offered for the first time at Utah State University.
The course, “Disability in the American Experience,” will fill the breadth social science requirement and is cross-listed as REH 101.
The course will be taught by Julie Smart and Greg Gerard. Smart is a professor and director in the department of special education and rehabilitation. Gerard is a doctoral student in rehab counseling.
The program at USU has been ranked 12th in the nation for three consecutive years by U.S. News and World Report. This is the third highest rank of all Utah schools.
“This course will look at disability from the perspective of the individual who has the disability, discuss how society views people with disabilities and consider the relationship between these two viewpoints,” Smart said.
Smart has been working for three years to get the class approved here. Other colleges across the United States already offer this course. Many of those universities use Smart’s textbook, Disability, Society, and the Individual.
“If we knew more about disabilities we would not fear them,” Smart said.
Rochelle Rubalcaba, a freshman majoring in deaf education, gained an interest in disabilities after reading the book Cocoa’s Kitten as a child. In the fourth grade Rubalcaba began learning sign language and is now an interpreter for the deaf.
“I was scared of other disabilities but once I worked with kids who had them I saw that they are the coolest people in the world,” Rubalcaba said.
Gerard said it is important for students to become familiar with disabilities.
“There are a lot more disabilities nowadays because modern medicine and science is better. For example, babies born with complications and people who have serious accidents are living because of these modern conveniences. If we are lucky to live long enough, we will have some sort of disability. It is important to learn about it so we can prepare ourselves for experiences we will have with disabilities,” Gerard said.