Rodney Gingerich walked outside to warm up his car. It was a blustery January day in 1997 and he was leaving early in the morning for an internship in Des Moines. The roads were icy. He thought nothing of it.

A few weeks later he was relearning how to brush his teeth, tie his shoes and put on his clothes. Gingerich’s car had been struck from the side by a semi on Interstate 35. He was rushed to Mary Greeley Medical Center by ambulance and then flown to Iowa Methodist Hospital in Des Moines where he was in a coma for nine days.

Two months later, while in rehabilitation, he started forming new memories and realized he wasn’t the same person he thought he was.

“To me, it’s like there was a Rodney before and a Rodney after,” said Gingerich, senior in management information systems. “It seems like my attitude and personality have changed.”

After damaging the right frontal lobe in his brain during the accident, Gingerich spent nearly two and a half years in rehabilitation, but said he still struggles with his short-term memory.

“It’s just bad. If I simply write down a word I can remember things, but I have to make accommodations for it,” he said. “Classes are difficult for me now. That’s why I have to have cues for things.”

Gingerich said classes and small tasks have become more difficult for him since the accident.

“Basic living skills – how to balance a checkbook, how to make macaroni and cheese – I had trouble with those initially,” Gingerich said. “A lot of things like that still happen to me. Tying my shoes – I’ll put them on and forget how to tie them. But if someone shows me how, I can remember again.”

Still in rehabilitation, Gingerich returned to Iowa State in 1998 and joined the student group that was then called People for Understanding Disabilities.

“It’s a good support group,” he said. “These are my peers, people in similar situations. They can identify with me more. It’s kind of like we’re all in the same boat.”

With a new outlook on life, he is excited about the recent name change from People Understanding Disabilities to the Alliance for Disabilities Awareness.

“I like ADA simply because of what the name stands for – Alliance for Disabilities Awareness. It’s just that – an alliance that’s trying to make people more aware and accepting of different types of disabilities and helping us all become more understanding of them,” Gingerich said.

The name change became official Wednesday night when it was passed by a two-thirds vote in the GSB senate. GSB Senator and former president of the organization Katie Greiman, senior in communication studies, said the name change not only is more appealing but better identifies the group with the American Disabilities Act, a bill signed into law by the U.S. Congress in 1990. The law protects disabled Americans from discrimination in the workforce and ensures basic civil rights.

“A lot of people know what [the American Disabilities Act] is federally,” Gingerich said. “We figured if we changed it here at Iowa State, people would identify more with the group.”

The Alliance for Disabilities Awareness group is currently one of four groups on campus to hold a specialty seat in the GSB senate, a position that Greiman was elected to fill.

“Katie’s been doing a great job representing students with disabilities, so there wasn’t too much concern with [the bill],” said GSB Speaker of the Senate Andrew Kothenbeutel.

Alliance for Disabilities Awareness meets every other Wednesday from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. in room 1073 of the Student Services Building.