College President makes personal effort to understand perspective of students with disabilities

If his recent perspective-taking outing is fully appreciated, then William F. Messner, the President of Massachusetts’ Holyoke Community College, gives a new meaning to the term “top-down management.” His effort resulted in the top man sitting down for a spell.

What Messner did was to
put himself in the role of one of his students with a disability.
He spent two hours in a wheelchair and attempted to navigate his way to different areas of campus. He quickly came to understand the challenges his campus offered and the inaccessibility of one particularly concerning area, all the while gaining the valuable insight of what students in this situation face daily. On another day, Messner also spent another two hours wearing glasses that limit and restrict his vision.


While many college and university presidents honestly claim to appreciate the effort their students put into pursuing their education, few, if any, others have made this specific effort to gain the particular insight that students with disabilities face on their campus. So, “Bravo” to President Messner for leading by example. It is definitely one worth repeating.

Two sites offering wheelchair perspective

I have been following a couple of web sites for a little while I want to share with you. They are related as both are written by men who use wheelchairs. However, in some ways, that is where they split. They are different, as the first offers the resources of a professional rehab counselor and the other is a savvy and literate mobility expert. Their similarities are the strength of the resource each provides.

The first one is a web site titled
Pitt Rehab Counselor,
Written by Greg Traynor, a man who had a spinal cord injury while diving in 1999. As the web site’s title indicates, he is a rehab counselor in Pittsburgh.

On his site, Greg provides some useful links under various categories ranging from accessible entertainment to a variety of adaptive activities including driving, gardening, and sports. He also provides a good gathering of other resources, which is where I found the second site I want to share with you.


WheelchairJunkie.com
Is a site operated by Mark E. Smith, a self proclaimed mobility superstar. I can not vouch for Mark’s mobility skills, but will take him at his word on that. However, I can attest to his ability to capture thoughts and events in a manner which grabs the reader’s attention. On his site, which seems to be a gathering place for his latest blog entries, Mark describes day-to-day encounters and thoughts he has in a direct, yet personable style. He is both candid, as evidenced by his post about
Equality at the Strip Club,
and also very insightful to the world of disabilities. For proof of the latter, read his
July 27, 2007 post
where he compares the level of rehab care one gets from the perspective of sudden trauma versus progressive disabilities.

I know there are other disability related blogs and web sites that are worth noting. Trust me, I read many of them regularly. I have just been impressed with these two sites lately and wanted to share them.