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Within my first year in the ASUW Student Disability Commission, my team and I started to notice that many disabled students had a difficult time attending student-led events. Most of the time, this programming wasn't advertised well enough for accommodations to be requested in time, and the events ended up being largely inaccessible to most non-traditional students (students with disabilities, student parents, commuters students, English-second-language learners, and more). This led to 3 years of meetings, data collection, debates, and finally... The Office of Inclusive Design. This entity will provide funding and guidance to student entities (clubs and student government entities) that want to make their programming inclusively designed. This office is the first of it's kind, and I cannot emphasize enough how proud I am of it.
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In my senior year, I decided to create some new disability studies knowledge and do my own independent research. I wanted to understand the concept of 'disability gain', which is the advantages that non-typical bodies and minds can have in particular contexts. I presented my findings at the Undergraduate Research Symposium, and I plan to publish it in a Disability Studies journal sometime this summer! Through that process, I gained qualitative data analysis skills and a new understanding of disability.
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