Disability Awareness Month Celebration
“Disabled Is Not a Dirty Word”
October 2023
Disability Awareness Month is nationally recognized during the month of October. We are proud of the accomplishments and contributions of members of this community and embrace the honor and acknowledgement of their achievements. The James Farmer Multicultural Center is working closely with the Office of Disability Resources, as well as Diversability, Talk to the Hands, and Best Buddies student clubs to coordinate and plan the events for this month-long celebration.
People commonly label disability as a negative thing that affects our lives in a negative way. For disabled people, it is a big part of who we are. This year for Disability Awareness Month, join us in celebrating and sharing what makes us unique and re-learning that Disabled Is Not A Dirty Word.
Disability Awareness Month Kick-off – Table Fair
Monday, October 2 | 11:00 am – 2:00 pm | Campus Walk in front of Lee Hall | (Rain location: Chandler C Ballroom, Cedric Rucker University Center)
Join us for our Disability Awareness Month kick-off event and tie dye a free t-shirt! Information and goodies will also be available from campus and community partners including: the Office of Disability Resources, the James Famer Multicultural Center, DiversAbility, Delta Alpha Pi Honor Society, Talk to the Hands, Best Buddies, the Virginia Department for Aging and Rehabilitative Services, Mental Health America – Fredericksburg, and more.
Reinvention and/or Rejection: How Do/Should We Talk about Disability?
Wednesday, October 4 | 4:00 pm | Room 139, Combs hall
Join Chris Foss (English) and Virginia Mackintosh (Psychological Sciences) for an hour-long conversation around Simi Linton’s essay “Reassigning Meaning” and, in particular, a communal consideration of the ways in which this piece (the original version of which was published 25 years ago now) does or does not still resonate with our own senses of how the language we use to refer to disability presents us with affirmative, ambiguous/ambivalent, and/or pejorative possibilities for how we perceive our bodies, our minds, ourselves—and, perhaps even more importantly, for how we perceive those of others. Coffee/tea provided through the generosity of the Center for Teaching Excellence.
Delta Alpha Pi International Honor Society Induction Ceremony
Thursday, October 5 | 6:00 pm | Chandler Ballroom, Rucker University Center
Contact: Danielle Smith, DAPi Faculty Advisor (dsmith24@umw.edu)
The Delta Alpha Pi Induction Ceremony is a time to celebrate new members to our Zeta Mu Chapter. Delta Alpha Pi is an academic honor society founded to recognize high-achieving students with disabilities who are attending colleges and universities as undergraduate or graduate students. This dynamic organization celebrates and supports academic achievement, leadership and advocacy for post-secondary students with disabilities.
Adaptive Sports Day
Saturday, October 7 | 11:00 am – 1 pm | Goolrick Main & Auxiliary Gyms
Co-sponsored by Delta Alpha Pi International Honor Society, DiversAbility, and the James Farmer Multicultural Center
This event celebrates the unique abilities of persons with disabilities in the realm of sports. Often, persons with disabilities are discouraged or denied the opportunity to participate in any form of spots. This event will demonstrate inclusive excellence and uplift and champion individuals with disabilities by giving them a platform to shine and excel. It will bring about positive social change through engagement. By participating in the various adaptive sports stations, individuals have the opportunity to gain a better understanding and appreciation of the complexities faced by individuals with disabilities, as well as their talents and contributions in sports and more broadly.
Sensory Bins Service Activity
Tuesday, October 10 | 4:00 pm |Colonnade Room, Cedric Rucker University Center
Come make a sensory bin to take home and/or make one for local students. Sensory bins allow people to relax and engage with their five senses in a calming and self-regulated way.
2023 Disability Awareness Month Major Speaker: Dr. David T. Mitchell
Thursday, October 12 | 6:30 pm | Digital Auditorium, Hurley Convergence Center
Dr. David T. Mitchell is a founder of Disability Studies in the Humanities. His work along with his partner, Sharon Snyder, serves as a cornerstone of what has come to be known as cripqueer studies. Cripqueer studies foregrounds not only disability as an identity seeking inclusion and rights, but as an active verb exposing the necessity of structural critiques of normativity. Without disability we cannot fully know how marginalized bodyminds understand it, navigate it, critique it, and expose the cracks that define normativity as forms of docility instrumental to belonging. His academic and creative filmwork pursues alternative pathways on which the designation of incapacity often turns into an unexpected capacity. Thus, the marginalization, exclusion, erasure, and destruction of cripqueer lives results in fissures of our cultural knowledge base that must be crossed by intimacies that only disability experience, theory, and the arts can provide. In their first film, “Vital Signs: Crip Culture Talks Back” (1995), Mitchell and Snyder unveiled the alternative interdependencies that inform what they call, crip culture, and deployed those non-normative practices as a critique of the Western myth of independence that is central to liberal humanist formulations of the Human. The film also demonstrated how disability queers all forms of being.
Assistive Technology Demo Day
Thursday, October 19th | 11:30 – 1:30 pm | 2nd Floor Gourley Living Room, Cedric Rucker University Center
Assistive Technology (AT) changes lives, and many of us use it every day! See how high-tech and low-tech devices can support learning and every day activities. Come check out Assistive Tech Demo Day to play with and see AT in action at UMW.
Movie – “Wonder”
Saturday, October 21 | 8:00 pm | Digital Auditorium, Hurley Convergence Center
Born with facial differences that, up until now, have prevented him from going to a mainstream school, Auggie Pullman becomes the most unlikely of heroes when he enters the local fifth grade. As his family, his new classmates, and the larger community all struggle to discover their compassion and acceptance, Auggie’s extraordinary journey will unite them and prove you can’t blend in when you were born to stand out (Credit: IMDb).
Silent Dinner
Tuesday, October 24 | 5:00 pm | Chandler A, Cedric Rucker University Center
Sponsored by Talk to the Hands Club
Join Talk to the Hands for our third annual Silent Dinner! The Silent Dinner is an event included in this celebration hosted by UMW’s American Sign Language Club. The purpose of this event is to encourage attendees to try to communicate without using verbal language, instead by using American Sign Language, written language, or any other form of non-verbal communication while eating and having fun! So many people do not use verbal language to communicate, and by trying to find new ways to communicate, we are attempting to make our community more inclusive and understanding.
Accessibility Bingo
Tuesday, October 24 | 8:00 pm | The Underground, Lee Hall
Cosponsored by CPB Reel Deals
Join the weekly bingo team as they incorporate terms and important information regarding accessibility throughout the night. Bring proof of attending a Disability Awareness Month activity and receive an extra card too.
Special Interest Show and Tell
Wednesday, October 25 | 5:00 pm | Digital Auditorium, Hurley Convergence Center
For more information, contact the James Farmer Multicultural Center at 540/654-1044 or umwjfmc@gmail.com. Visit students.umw.edu/multicultural.
Please email us at umwjfmc@gmail.com if you have any questions regarding disability-related accommodations.