Empowerment and Access: Higher Education for Persons with Disabilities
The impact of public service, teaching, and research at Illinois on accessibility issues, assistive technology development, and public policy and perception in the past, present, and future will be highlighted through an exhibit installed on the National Mall in Washington D.C. from June 27 through July 8, 2012. The exhibit will include interactive technology stations, video, a series of posters and images, and an empathic modeling area where patrons will be able to experience various disabilities, assistive technologies, and learn about wheelchair sports. Students, faculty, staff, and alumni from the Division of Disability Resources and Educational Services and the Industrial Design program will interact with patrons, sharing first-hand the impact of Illinois as a leader in accessibility.
Illinois is the global leader in higher education for persons with disabilities. Home to the oldest post-secondary disability support program in the world, thousands of graduates have been empowered through access to a high quality Illinois education.
The Urbana-Champaign campus Division of Disability Resources and Educational Services is associated with many programmatic innovations including research on which American National Standards Institute is founded. First in the nation initiatives at Illinois include a wheelchair-accessible fixed route bus system; accessible university residence halls; a university service fraternity and advocacy group comprised of students with disabilities (Delta Omicron); and collegiate adapted sports and recreation programs for students with disabilities, which produced the first wheelchair athlete to win an Olympic Gold Medal.
Illinois continues to lead with through continued improvement of facilities and services for students with disabilities and through the development of pioneering teaching and adaptive technologies that create a more accessible world.
Check out our gallery of images from the Festival.