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Mission and Accomplishments: A New Kind of Access Ramp
In the summer of 1996, San Francisco State University’s President Robert A. Corrigan authorized establishment of SFSU’s Institute on Disability. The Institute’s mission statement declares: “The San Francisco State University Institute on Disability promotes interdisciplinary education, training, research and service in disability-related areas. The Institute develops partnerships with programs that serve the disability community on the campus, locally and statewide, nationally and internationally.”
In recent years, social paradigms of disability have identified institutionalized discrimination rather than medical pathology as the primary obstacle to the social integration of disabled persons. This new perspective has vast implications for civil-rights laws and social-welfare policies, architectural design and assistive technology, and professional training and service delivery in disability-related fields. It also raises profound questions about basic values, arrangements and practices in every sphere of society.
Universities have a central part to play in this process of reconceptualization and redesign. [1] They should engage in the theoretical reconceptualization of "disability" and its relation to broader social and cultural issues. [2] They should apply the social model of disability to public policymaking and to training and practice in disability-related professions. [3] They should form partnerships with disability community organizations to carry out these tasks.
This effort should be interdisciplinary and experimental. It should explore and test new ideas and methods. It should rigorously adhere to the highest intellectual standards in both research and teaching.
It should also build intellectual access ramps linking the disability community and universities. Traffic on those ramps should flow in both directions, offering the disability community the best research and educational services universities can provide, and incorporating the experience and expertise of people with disabilities themselves.
These principles will guide San Francisco State University's Institute on Disability. We will work to become an access ramp for research and education, for ideas and solutions.
In accomplishing its mission, the Institute has advanced SFSU’s commitments to:
• academic rigor and quality;
• community service;
• equity, social justice, and diversity;
• internationalization;
• and improvement of education and services for SFSU students.
The university invested approximately $360,000 in the Institute on Disability 1996-2004. During that time, we generated over $1.2 million in external funding. A listing of those grants and contracts appears below:
• “Career Development and Mentoring Program for College Students with Disabilities,” U.S. Department of Education, 1996-1997, $360,000.
• “Examining the Impact on Postsecondary Students of Three Disability Studies Paradigms,” research study, U.S. Department of Education, National Institute of Disability and Rehabilitation Research, Innovation Grants, 1996, $50,000.
• Independent Living Center Services Certificate program, Long-Term Training Grant, U.S. Department of Education, Rehabilitation Services Administration, 1997-2000, $300,000.
• Long-Term Training Grant in Independent Living, SUNY Buffalo/Western
New York Independent Living Program, subcontract to develop curriculum and
on-line training, U.S. Department of Education, Rehabilitation Services Administration,
2001-2002, $34,500.
• National Endowment for the Humanities Focus Grant: “Greater San Francisco Bay Area Inter-University Consortium on Disability Studies,” 2001-2002, $25,000.
• National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute: “Integrating
Disability Studies into the Humanities Curriculum,” 2000, $164,000.
• National Council on Disability, Report on San Francisco Bay Area Racial-Minority-Group Members with Disabilities, in support of Lift Every Voice: Modernizing Disability Policies and Programs to Serve a Diverse Nation, 1998, $23,000.
• START, grant to improve retention and academic success rates among university students with disabilities, from the US Department of Education, Fund for the Improvement of Post-Secondary Education, 1996-1999, $250,000.
Some of these grants are both esteemed and hard to get. Under the leadership of Professor Alice Nemon, the Institute obtained one of the highly competitive FIPSE grants during our first year of operation. The NEH Summer Institute in 2000 marked the first time SFSU hosted one of those prestigious programs. It won coverage in the New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, and USA Today.
The Institute on Disability has had a significant impact on instruction in both academic and applied fields within SFSU, in the academy at large, in the community, and internationally. It has also supported improved services for students with disabilities. (See Projects, Events, and Grants)