Sara Mearns
September has been recognized as Disability Culture Month at the University of Missouri since 2020, and it serves as a month-long celebration of disability awareness and educational accessibility at the institutional level.
“I think it means a lot if you have a disability to see an event, an entire month, planned around disability,” said Amber Cheek, UM System’s director of accessibility and ADA coordinator.
However, Mizzou’s innovative history in the area of accessible education began well before the establishment of this inclusive celebration.
According to a presentation given by the Mizzou Office of Accessibility and ADA on Sept. 17, the mission to provide inclusive education to students with disabilities began in the 1920s, when veterans returning from World War I arrived at Mizzou, often with war-induced injuries and disabilities.
Thus, The Disabled American Veterans of the World War, one of the first campus organizations for students who are disabled in the United States, was founded with the purpose of providing aid to veterans and students with disabilities.
Following World War II, an influx of veterans who were disabled returned to Mizzou. This increased number of students with disabilities led a group of faculty members to take action, and in 1959, this advocacy team applied for a $1 million federal grant to improve the accessibility accommodations across Mizzou’s campus. This grant, proposed by professor of education Dr. John McGowan, allowed Mizzou to be an early adopter of accessibility features, such as elevators, ramps and curb cuts.
This monumental grant also allowed Mizzou to create the Dunklin House in Graham Hall, an accessible residential house that integrated students both with and without disabilities, a move that was influential and innovative for the time.
(Picture of the Dunklin House Executive Board can be added here, if necessary)
By the early 1960s, Mizzou expressed a clear ingenuity in the area of campus accessibility, and because of this, the university was named one of 10 “Designated Education Centers” for students who are disabled in the country and was only one of three accessible universities in the Midwest region.
“Coming to Mizzou was the first time I ever saw a wheelchair ramp,” alumnus Al Akerson said to Cheek over the phone.
After the passage of federal laws such as the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act of 1975, Mizzou opened the doors of their first Disability Center in 1976, with the purpose of providing accommodations to students with disabilities.
In 1986, two faculty members within Mizzou’s Division of Information Technology, Darren Gabbert and Darola Hockley, obtained a grant from Apple to initiate an assistive technology center for students who are disabled at Mizzou. This technology center still operates today as the Mizzou IT Accessibility Center.
Succeeding the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, Mizzou continued to strengthen their accessibility awareness across campus. In the early 1990s, for instance, the university spent nearly $10 million in accommodational upgrades across campus buildings.
In 2010, students partnered with the Disability Center to create Celebrate Ability Week in recognition of student disability and accessibility across campus before adapting the event into a month-long celebration in 2020.
Now, approaching 15 years of recognizing disability culture at Mizzou, this celebration is more prevalent than ever, serving the purpose of advocating for disability awareness across campus.
Students who wish to get involved in the advocacy for disability inclusion can join the Mizzou Disability Coalition, a student organization dedicated to improving accessibility and increasing awareness of disabilities.
“[The Office of Accessibility and ADA] always welcomes students who want to get involved in our office and who are interested in certain issues of accessibility,” Cheek said. “We’re happy to have those conversations.”
Edited by Jae Jepsen | [email protected]
Copy edited by Savannah Church and Avery Copeland | [email protected]
Edited by Maya Bensaoud | [email protected]
Edited by Alex Gribb | [email protected]