Last week in class I was thinking about how phrases like "differently abled" and "physically challenged" work to dismiss the experiences of people with disabilities. I think they fail to acknowledge that the world is not constructed for people with disabilities and limit the types of disabilities that a person is addressing. Reading Mia Mingus's "Access Intimacy: The Missing Link" made me think further about how this type of language (and other types of language) from nondisabled people may affect the experiences of people with disabilities. I really related to Mingus's points as a disabled person and they made me think a lot about my relationships with others and how feeling a sense of access intimacy can completely redefine my relationship with someone.

Thomas Couser’s piece discussed the ethics of life writing from a biomedical perspective, touching on some themes I’m familiar with from a weeklong externship I did with Dr. Howard Trachtman at NYU Langone. Dr. Trachtman works as a pediatric nephrologist and treats a range of city kids with rare kidney diseases. There is no abundance of medications that treat pediatric renal disease so Dr. Trachtman runs clinical trials to test out new medications to improve treatment for his patients. While I was shadowing him, I got to witness multiple children signing up to participate in the clinical trials and observe the process that regulates informed consent. Each time, Dr.

This is a mental "rough draft," as I begin to formulate my own ideas about inclusion, accessibility, and higher education. I would love to hear your thoughts!    

Here's an initial list of classroom practices that you suggested in our first class meeting: 

Mixing small group and large group activities 

Providing discussion questions before class

Providing clear structure when possible 

Making the physical space of the classroom as accessible and welcoming as possible

Creating open dialogue and willingness to address hurtful comments

Creating a safe space for discussion 

Assuming fallibility, seeking growth and change

Asking for clarification of vocabulary and concepts

Taking care of yourself 

Offering time to reflect

Gallery walk as a classroom activity

Suggestions to guide reading (e.g. what to read in depth, what can be skimmed)

Congratulations today to long-time Serendipian, Julia, and Andrew!
May all the days of your marriage be serendipitous....

Cake artistry by Stable Cottage Cakes

Earlier this summer, I remember having to choose which writing seminar I wanted the most. Unfortunately as indecisive as I am, I was stuck between choosing this seminar and another one related to health studies. At first, I chose the other one because I wasn’t really sure. However, I kept thinking about this one in the back of my mind, and I switched at literally the last minute by emailing them! So today, as I write this, I consider myself very grateful for taking this class; it was always my first choice in my heart! Since my writing has come such a long way, getting placed into the normal writing seminar meant so much to me. However, I knew that there was still a lot I had to work on when it came to my writing abilities.

While I really wasn’t sure what to expect from this class, the “Portrait” element of the course title is what actually stood out to me and made me want to take it the most. I had taken many art classes in high school which involved a lot of short essay writing and close readings about paintings and images. So when I saw that I might be able to do some of that in this class, I was really excited. The disability element of the class began interesting a lot after a few weeks of the class. Particularly when we started reading writing by disabled people who told stories about their own experiences is when I became most engaged in the class.

I took this class only by chance after switching writing seminars with someone else at the beginning of the semester. I wasn’t particularly interested in the topic of the class in any way but was glad I would still be able to take intro to CS. At first, the portraits and videos we saw regarding disability made me very uncomfortable, Riva Lerer’s portraits were hard to look at, and it was hard for me to understand how these portraits could be seen as “beautiful”. There wasn’t any particular moment it happened, but I do see now that I have a much better understanding of what disability is, and am much more comfortable talking about it and seeing it.

Murderball trailer
CW for film: sexism, racism, ableism

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lD7SBgLvjqY