This week marks the anniversary of the Individuals With Disabilities Act however since lengthy earlier than the civil rights regulation was signed on July 26, 1990, CUNY has been guided by the precept that everybody deserves a good shot at training and alternative. That features 10,000 CUNY college students with disabilities.
In April, we introduced a brand new College-wide coverage that may take away tutorial boundaries and strengthen our incapacity assist system throughout CUNY’s 25 campuses. Centralizing the coverage is a crucial step in our efforts to make sure that all CUNY college students with disabilities have the identical alternative to succeed.
The brand new coverage may have a direct influence on college students by instituting a user-friendly system known as CUNY Accommodate to simplify and monitor the method for requesting tutorial lodging and different sources. And within the long-term, the coverage will open our doorways wider to college students with disabilities by making certain that each determination we make in regards to the tutorial lifetime of the College considers its implications for inclusion, fairness and accessibility.
We’ve identified for a few years that fairness isn’t solely about race, ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic standing. There’s a important and long-standing employment hole for individuals with disabilities, and CUNY’s tradition of inclusion calls for that we handle it as we do any inequity.
To make good on that promise, we now have a wonderful program known as CUNY LEADS, which gives tutorial, internship and profession counseling to college students with disabilities. Our rising program of inclusive and adaptive athletics is a nationwide trailblazer – not solely in sports activities however in getting ready student-athletes with disabilities for all times after faculty. I’m proud that our efforts are a part of why 70% of CUNY college students with disabilities are employed after commencement – double the nationwide common.
However there’s extra to be achieved.
CUNY has lengthy embraced the spirit of the ADA however with our new coverage, we’re strengthening the assist for all college students with disabilities in our school rooms to facilitate full participation and be certain that each pupil has an equal alternative to succeed.
The brand new coverage strengthens and simplifies entry to a variety of lodging that college students with disabilities may have: from accessible course supplies and assistive expertise to prolonged time on exams and the assistance of a professional studying assistant who can take notes in school, function a tutor or present different helps.
The CUNY Accommodate platform being launched this fall will enable college students with disabilities to simply provoke the method of requesting lodging. The brand new coverage offers campus incapacity companies places of work two weeks to behave on lodging requests.
For CUNY’s college students with disabilities, the advances promise actual advantages.
“I’m proud that the College has taken steps to place us forward of the present ADA regulation,” stated Lennyn Jacob, a disabilities research main at CUNY College of Skilled Research and former chairperson of the CUNY Coalition for College students with Disabilities.
“This coverage gives clear tips to satisfy the wants of disabled college students whereas supporting employees to make sure their success. Not solely am I disabled and proud, however I’m disabled and supported right here at CUNY.”
Matos Rodríguez is the chancellor of The Metropolis College of New York (CUNY), the most important city public college system in the USA.
