This article is also available in: 日本語
During my research trip in Wisconsin last month, I could go back to my school, University of Wisconsin River Falls (UWRF).
When I was a student and had problems with my wheelchair or other issues related to my disability, I always visited Mark Johnson who is the office coordinator at Student Ability Services.
Fortunately I could meet him again which we both never ever expected!
Mark studied psychology and sociology for his bachelor degree and counseling studies for his master’s degree.
After he worked as a counselor, he got an opportunity to work in his current position for students with disability.
The number of registered disabled students at Student Ability Services is about 330.
The top 3 of disability categories are 1. Learning Disability (LD), 2. ADHD, 3. Mental Health. Mark works for them to arrange reasonable accommodations.
He showed me one of the tools provided for people with hearing disabilities.
It is “FM system”.
Some students have hearing aids, but in the classroom, it still doesn’t work very well.
It is such a big room and the professor standing kind of far away and echoes and so on.
To improve those learning environment, students can use FM system.
They attach a FM receiver to their hearing aids.
And the professor wears FM transmitter and microphone.
It transmits the professor’s voice directly into the hearing aid.
I have asked one of my deaf friends in Japan about FM system.
She said this tool is not really common to use at school, but in a private seminar etc.
I think this is one of the greatest tools which can be used in classroom.
Especially some classrooms in college are huge and hard to catch up what’s going on even without hearing impairment.
Mark and I talked about the old memories.
The one of them is quite funny and I keep sharing with other people all the time.
When I first got to UWRF, I was assigned to a dorm that has no elevators.
My room was on the 1st floor but there were kitchen and laundry room on the basement.
Since I brought 2 wheelchairs from Japan, I put one wheelchair on the basement and went up/down stairs by myself because this situation was very normal to me; usually no elevator at public schools in Japan.
I had to go up/down stairs for 13 years by myself, from elementary school to junior college.
Couple weeks later, an American teacher found it and contacted Mark and the residential hall right away.
Couple days later, I got a letter saying that I could move to another dorm which has elevator.
The American teacher said, “It may be normal to you, a person in wheelchair, to go up/down stairs in Japan with your hands, but not in the US. It is illegal.”
At that time only 2 dorms out of 10 had elevators.
During summer vacation, since many students go back home, only 1 dorm opens usually.
I decided to stay during summer and was noticed that the only opened dorm had no elevator.
Since the school doesn’t want me to go down stairs, as reasonable accommodation, they provided a microwave in my room and arranged weekly laundry service.
Of course I didn’t need to pay anything for those.
I think they worked hard to supply me with reasonable accommodations to make up the insufficiency of infrastructure.
Mark brought the above stories to make more dorms accessible when talking to people with residential hall even after I left UWRF.
Surprisingly the new members of residential hall heard about my stories too.
And…now they put elevators in 2 more dorms!
Oh, my experiences have contributed!
In the end, I asked Mark why the office name has changed from “Disability Services”, the one used when I was a student, to “Student Ability Services”.
Usually the offices for supporting students with disabilities are named “Disability Services” or “Disability Center” in many schools in US.
He said,
People has dependent and negative image in the word of “Disability”.
The majority of disabilities that students have in UWRF are LD, ADHD, and mental health and those people do not really think they have a “disability”.
After we changed to use the word, “Ability”, more people come to the office and look more comfortable.
It is just a word, but a word means a lot.
I was so happy to come back here.
Until today I still appreciate what Mark has done for me at school.
UWRF is a small school in a small town, but I really love this place the most!