Disability issues deserve awareness

By By Estuardo Garcia

Tuesday, April 12, 2005



advertisement

Rachel Magario has been blind since she was a little girl. Hamlet, her jet-black guide dog and a walking stick help her get around campus.

She also uses LiftVan, a service to transport students with disabilities to academic-related activities.

But getting around campus hasn’t always been easy for the for the graduate student from Sao Paulo, Brazil.

She made her case to KU on Wheels a couple years ago to allow her to use the LiftVan services, which were only available to students with mobility disabilities.

She said KU on Wheels originally justified its rule because blind people could get in and out of the regular buses but later made an exception for her. She said the organization never took into account the difficulty of having her guide dog on the bus or waiting for the bus.

Now Magario’s goal is to have a seat on Student Senate that would represent students on campus with disabilities, so the University of Kansas can avoid rules like the one that prevented her from using LiftVan.

Senate currently does not have a seat to speak on behalf of students with disabilities.

Magario said she could fill the role as the representative.

“Right now what I want is just for disabled people to be a part of the decision making,” she said. “If you do it right the first time, you don’t need to fix it.”

If Magario wanted to bring anything to Senate’s attention, she would have to ask the international student senator. She said a lack of interest in the part of the student body government was not the problem, but a lack of awareness.

Jeff Dunlap, student body vice president, said he supported the idea of a senator representing students with disabilities.

“It’s a population that gets overlooked a lot,” the Leawood senior said. Dunlap said KU on Wheels was only designed to take students around campus and back home, but students with disabilities argued that students used the buses to go to downtown Massachusetts Street or go shopping at Target, and they were not given the same privilege.

Petitions like Magario’s influenced Senate to expand the LiftVan service this year.

Senate put forth $10,000 to expand the service, half from KU on Wheels and half from the Office of Student Success. The service now takes students with disabilities to attend extracurricular activities on campus. The service will receive the same amount from Senate next year.

While Magario likes the expansion, she said the University could do better, and Senate needed to have a deeper interest in disability issues.

Zach Coble, Winfield sophomore and president of Able Hawks, would like to see disabled student representation in student government.

“Many minority groups on campus have representatives on Student Senate. Students with disabilities come to about 10 percent of students here at KU. That’s a fairly large percentage to not have any representation,” he said.

To get a seat in Senate, Able Hawks, which is a campus organization that promotes awareness of disabilities, needs to create a bill and then Senate will need to pass it.

The earliest possibility for a seat would be next Fall when Senate is back in session.

Able Hawks is taking an early initiative for a Senate seat. It will meet tomorrow to discuss potential candidates for the possible seat.

Melissa Manning, associate director of Disability Resources, said 651 students at the University had registered disabilities, which includes physical and learning disabilities. But she said the office only kept track of students who asked for help. She said about 2,000 students at the University had some form of disability.

Comments

Use the comment form below to begin a discussion about this content.

Advertisement