This month, from March 11, to March 15, the Pepperdine community came together to organize the fourth annual Disability Awareness Week. Students, faculty and staff paired with the Office of Community Engagement and Service to prepare a week’s worth of events to spread knowledge about the disabled community at Pepperdine.
March 11 – Captioning
To start off the week’s events, the DAW planning committee tabled at Mullin Town Square from 10 a.m., to 2 p.m., each day of the week. At the DAW table, students were able to participate in trivia to win prizes.
Later on, at 4 p.m., in the Weisman Museum, Dr. Chad Duffy offered an image description workshop that opened a discussion about how visual captions help make media more accessible to wider audiences, senior Maddie Beadle said.
March 12 – Workplace Accessibility
Alongside the all-week tabling, students had a chance to participate in an Accommodation and Accessibility in the Workplace learning event from noon to 2 p.m., Tuesday. This event was held on Zoom and in person in BPC 189.
To finish the day, there was a viewing of the movie “Crip Camp” in Elkins Auditorium from 6:30 to 9 p.m.
March 13 – Activism and Research
For the middle of the week, the committee had an Activists in Action Panel, which was in the Fireside Room and ran from 11:30 a.m., to 1:30 p.m., alongside a Research Symposium from 3 to 4:45 p.m., in the Lighthouse. Mimi Dao offered an introduction to ASL class, which was in person in AC 290 and on Zoom at 5:30 p.m.
March 14 – Yoga and Advocacy
On Thursday, there was accessible yoga from 9 to 10:30 a.m., which was located on Zoom and on the Light House patio. The final event of the day was a Self-Advocacy Workshop that featured guest speaker Elizabeth Pode. This event ran from 6 to 8 p.m., and was available on Zoom and in BPC 189.
March 15 – Krip Hop and Neurodiversity
The final day of the week kicked off with Krip Hop Nation and guest speaker Leroy Moore from 4 to 6 p.m., in the Fireside Room. To close out the week of events, there was a neurodiversity presentation on Zoom and in BPC 189 from 6 to 7 p.m.
Student and Employee Voices
Beadle has been the student leader in charge of organizing the events for this week and said that the goal of this year was to add more events for the community to attend and learn from. Beadle is currently a senior and says that the leadership may change in the coming years after her graduation.
“So, there may be a student that takes over,” Beadle said. “I hope that that’s the case. But I also think [DAW] will be shifting a lot more towards a community-based approach. And that’s good. And there’s a lot of great Disability Justice background for that.”
Beadle also expressed her appreciation for faculty and staff involvement during the planning stages of the events. They have invested a lot of time in bringing in guest speakers to help bolster the events for the week, Beadle said.
“The biggest thing is that [disabilities] will affect all of us eventually,” Beadle said. “That’s something that McKenzie and Emily had iterated a lot is that we will all become disabled. So, it might not apply to you now, but it will apply to you at some point in your life, and it’s the largest minority in the whole world.”
Beadle also wanted this event to be focused on continuing the advocacy work of Pepperdine alumni Emily McNutt and Mackenzie Mazen. DAW was created specifically in response to the lack of attention that disabled students were getting from campus administration, Beadle said.
Faculty and staff also threw their hats into the ring to help out with the event through contributions such as Duffy’s presentation on captioning in media.
“What I’m seeing is more offices want to be a part of Disability Awareness Week,” Duffy said. “There are multiple parts of the Provost Office that are being involved, and I can’t remember a single event where the provost was involved last semester or last year, which is fantastic.”
Disability pride is about framing life not as the lack of something but rather as being full of identity and diversity, Duffy said. Excited by the growth of the programming, Duffy said that he was expecting to see more changes in the events of the coming years.
Another group largely associated with the planning of DAW has been the Office of Student Accessibility. OSA has been doing everything it can to promote and help with the planning of the week, Accessibility Specialist Mickey Triffo said.
“I see a big information gap not just in this student body but everywhere about what does it mean to be disabled,” Triffo said. “What language can I use? How many people even are disabled? There is a lack of awareness. I also think, on this campus, folks might tend to think that no disabled people are here.”
There are many students with invisible disabilities across campus, Triffo said. If the lack of awareness continues, it’ll make it harder and harder for disabled students to get the support they need from the student body and administration, Triffo said.
“We are proud of this identity because that’s the only way the stigma is going to change is if we talk about it,” Beadle said. “So, [disability] pride is a really big part of me.”
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Contact Joseph Heinemann via email: joe.heinemann@pepperdine.edu
