USU hosts first disability week to create accessible, aware campus

Utah State University is set to host its first disability week Dec. 4-8. The Academic Belonging and Learning Excellence Committee of the President’s Cabinet has been preparing a week of fun and informative events to end the fall semester. 

LeiLoni DePew, a second-year student with a double emphasis in recreation administration and event management, is the director of ABLEC. 

“The two major focuses that we wanted to have this year was expanding the Honors program and letting students know more about those specific opportunities,” DePew said. “Also working with the Disability Resource Center to increase student accessibility and allow students with disabilities to get involved more.” 

DePew is spearheading the planning and direction of the upcoming event. After speaking with counselors at the DRC about disabilities day on Dec. 3, DePew realized there was a lack of events geared towards students with disabilities. 

“The DRC asked us if we were going to do anything for disability day, and so a couple days later I went to my committee and I was like, ‘Hey, this thing is coming up. Do we want to plan something?’” DePew said. “We started planning an event and so I’m there to facilitate.”

Ronan Spencer, a first-year student studying political science, is an active member of ABLEC. Spencer is working alongside DePew to bring disability week to fruition. 

“We were deciding what’s something that we can do to help students, but also what’s something we can do to show that we’re actually making progress,” Spencer said. “I was like, ‘Let’s have an event,’ since it’s a physical thing that we can represent.”

DePew and Spencer have emphasized the importance of student input on what the events should look like and ensuring disability week happens. 

“I’ve been helping plan with LeiLoni and a few other people, and we’ve been making sure that everything in the event runs smoothly during this week,” Spencer said. “Also what we can do and what are the specific things that students will want to see out of this week.” 

The week will consist of two events geared towards students with disabilities. The events are open to everyone, and will kick off with deaf cinema night on Dec. 4. 

“One of the events that we’re really excited about is deaf cinema night,” Spencer said. “I’m excited that we’re going to be able to play some short films representing the deaf experience, as well as some short films using ASL.” 

Spencer hopes this event will give people insight into the intricacies of deaf culture and proper ASL usage. 

“I’m fluent in ASL, and there’s a lot of things I’ve learned in ASL classes that a lot of people wouldn’t necessarily consider when they think of how to interact with a deaf person,” Spencer said. “What’s respectful or not respectful, and especially in deaf cinema it’s really interesting.” 

On Dec. 5 at 7 p.m. there will be an accessible recreation night in the ARC where students can watch and play alongside professional wheelchair basketball teams. 

“I am super excited about accessible recreation night. I actually just solidified that we’re going to have the Wheelin’ Wildcats, which is a pro basketball wheelchair team in Ogden,” DePew said. “They’re going to come and teach us how to play wheelchair basketball then play a little scrimmage with us.”  

DePew has experienced what having a disability is like on the Logan campus.

“I have autism, and because of my autism I have a million other things,” DePew said. “Auditory processing disorder, depression and anxiety are the biggest ones. I think that the biggest challenge being a disabled person on campus is just advocating for myself, especially as somebody with a service animal.” 

Students and faculty with a disability face a variety of unique challenges in the classroom. 

“Advocating for my needs and accessibility in classes, like being able to use a captioning device or being able to see my professor so I can read their lips are all challenges,” DePew said. “But I have found that the university is often happy to work with me and listen to my feedback. That’s what we are hoping for with this event, that this will continue raising awareness for faculty as well as students.” 

DePew hopes events like disability week will help students learn proper ways to interact with others who have disabilities. 

“Disability week can help educate people on the fact that individuals with disabilities are just like anyone else,” DePew said. “We just have these barriers in society that we have to break through sometimes. Others can help us break through those barriers to create a more accessible environment for everyone.” 

Spencer said many students are uncomfortable reaching out for the resources they need or are unaware these resources exist. As part of the discussions around disability week, solutions to issues such as these were brought up. 

“We were talking about possibly in the applications when you’re applying to USU, putting in a checkbox showing that you’re interested in receiving emails from the DRC about accommodations,” Spencer said. “For most students, they have to be the ones reaching out and that’s difficult for a lot of disabled students.” 

Spencer said a lack of knowledge seemed to be the biggest issue at USU, and this could be rectified by providing students with information about disability culture. 

Widely known basic ASL was one example of ways the community could make USU more accessible.

“I feel like there’s sometimes cultural changes that need to happen on campus,” Spencer said. “There were some things on campus that we were seeing mostly due to people not knowing how to deal with people from different backgrounds.” 

 DePew and Spencer said they want disability week to be the first step towards a more accessible, aware campus in order to create long lasting change at USU. 

“I would really love it if disability week became an annual thing that keeps evolving to fit the needs and interests of the students on campus at the time,” DePew said.