Although topics of diversity have been more widely accepted by society, according to Iowa State students and faculty, progress for individuals with disabilities has lagged behind.

While students with disabilities may struggle to find connections, the Alliance for Disability Awareness (ADA) offers students an opportunity to create connections with other students who share or empathize with their struggles.

“…our main goal is to create a safe environment for our students with disabilities to have a safe place to come,” Sydney Kelty, an elementary education major and president of ADA, said.

She aims to help students make connections which may otherwise be difficult.

“A lot of the students that we see don’t have the opportunity to [meet] someone, either with a disability, or have the same disability they have in their life, and once they come to college, there’s a wide spectrum of disabilities that we offer up for them.”

ADA also provides students with the opportunity to make connections apart from disabilities. Kelty explains, “A lot of [students] have a wide range of intersectionality…They’re demonstrating the pride in that, and that’s just really great to see the intersectionality beyond disability…”

Adviser Jamie Niman strives to build on the inclusiveness of ADA in her first year at the position. “I do want to be an advocate for students but I also want to help build a place where students feel comfortable and feel safe talking about what they’re struggling with on campus…”

While promotional flyers for ADA can be found around campus, the club has taken greater strides in reaching out to students including a brand new social media presence, which intends to make connections and communication easier for the community. With a greater outreach, the club can help impact even more student lives. According to Kelty, “[We] even posted announcements for ‘help needed’ for helping a student and I’ve had several people share that… we’ve raised a lot of people through [social media], over 100 people.”

While social media has been a successful means of connecting individuals, Disability Awareness Week gives members of the club the ability to connect with a wide range of students, many of whom are not entirely familiar with the organization. Disability Awareness Week is full of events to help educate the greater Iowa State community on topics and issues regarding individuals with disabilities.

“… with Disability Awareness Week, we’ve partnered with the Iowa Regents Disability awareness summit… we’ve had a lot of cross promotion,” Niman said.

The event is chalk full of presentations and workshops, concluding the week with a student voice panel. According to Niman, recognition of disability issues helps support students who may find that their struggles are largely misunderstood by society.

“…I think that sometimes disability does get kind of left out of diversity talk and treated like a single topic issue…” Niman said. 

More information on ADA and Disability Awareness Week events can be found here.