U Of M Hosts Disability Issues
Conference Series
by Bob Sans
Dr. Robert Kane and many of his colleagues at the University of
Minnesota have been pushing for the establishment of a disability
studies program for sometime. After a recent conference on disability
held at the U, they are hoping that they have generated momentum
and support towards that goal.
Exploring various aspects of disability and generating support for
disability programs were two of the themes of the Politics of Disability
Conference at the U of M in June. About 150 faculty and staff from
the U, and professionals and laypersons working in fields related
to disability and aging attended.
This conference is the
fifth and final one in the President’s
Interdisciplinary Conference Series on Disabilities initiated by
U President Bob Bruininks and held at the U this past year. Topics
in the previous four conferences were disability policy, ethics of
disability, economics of disability, and caregivers’ perspectives
on disability.
“This conference examined the key factors that affect disability
policy and the impact that changes in the political, demographic,
and economic environment are likely to have on the future course
for such policy,” explained Kane, holder of an endowed chair
of the Long-Term Care and director of the Aging Center in the University
of Minnesota School of Public Health. “It also sought to tie
policy to action and develop an agenda for change at the state and
national levels. The overall theme of the series was to explore various
aspects of disability and how do we generate support for disability
programs.”
Some of the topics covered included: How do the various disability
programs (across types and age groups) potentially compete? How does
the rationale for services differ by type age or type of disability?
Beyond the discussions and
debates on policy and politics, another main objective of this conference
series is to increase discussion about disability issues across the
U and between the U and the disability community, said Jake Priester,
coordinator of the U of M Center on Aging, one of the sponsors of
the series.
Town and Gown
“We want
to create discussion between the U and the disability community and
stimulate greater cooperation and joint activities between the U
and the disability advocacy community in terms of improving disability
policy,” Priester said.
Conference organizers also hoped that the series will have the same
bridging effect on the various U of M departments that work on disability
issues and research. That is especially important because of the
effort to establish a disability studies program.
“A lot of faculty and researchers at the U address the issue
of disability but they do so in their departments and don’t
communicate with each other,” Priester said. “Our job
is to bring these people together.”
To that end, both Kane
and Priester rated the conference series a success. “We have had good attendance at each of the conferences,
more so in the last one with 150 people,” Priester said. “It
was a mixed audience with employees and faculty from different departments
at the U, government employees as well as people from the disability
community.”
“We view this conference and the series as great success,” Kane
added. “First, it greatly increased the visibility of disability
as a topic worthy of academic exploration. It brought town and gown
together around the topic and identified several areas where further
collaboration should be fruitful. We hope it will lead to further
collaboration between members of the disability community and faculty
and staff of the university to pursue policies to make disability
services more effective and to find new ways to reorganize them.”
At the U of M, the top
item on the agenda is the establishment of a disability studies
program. “Having a program will make disability
a topic worthy of academic study and provide a focal point both for
instruction and research,” Kane said. “We’ve had
lots of good discussion. Hopefully the meetings that we have had
will move the agenda forward and build more support for a disability
studies program,” Priester said.
The President’s Interdisciplinary Conference series is designed
to nurture academic work across the disciplines, and to find new
connections between the University and the broader community. Sponsors
of the conference series are the Center on Aging, the Minnesota Area
Geriatric Education Center, the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs,
the Center for Bioethics, the Institute on Community Integration
and the Office of Disability Services.
