Allies for Students with Disabilities, a student-run organization, is working with the university-run Disability Services Office to better accommodate students of varying disabilities at NC State. Allies for Students with Disabilities focuses on promoting awareness and connecting students with disabilities to the resources they need. 

“Nationally, about 11 percent of undergraduates are registered with having a disability and are receiving accommodations for having that disability,” said Christopher Boggs, a graduate research assistant for mechanical engineering at NC State and a member of ASD. “At NC State, that number is more like 3 percent, and so we really want to try and increase the amount of students that are getting accommodations for disabilities.”

Boggs said the definition for disabilities is broad, covering anything that would limit a person’s normal access to everyday resources. Under this definition, disabilities range from something as simple as a broken wrist to complex mental conditions like post-traumatic stress disorder. Boggs said disabilities can be categorized into physical disabilities that can easily be seen, like a broken bone, and invisible disabilities, like diabetes or autism.

“General awareness is key to improving care for students with disabilities,” said Matthew Burch, a graduate studying materials science and engineering and a member of ASD. “Many NCSU students don’t seek help because of the stigma against asking for it. There is still a large social stigma against students with a disability at any university, including NCSU. Slowly bringing awareness to the fact that 1 in 10 students has a disability and would qualify for help from the NCSU Disability Service Office would lead to a vast improvement in the general well-being of students with disabilities.”

 One of ASD’s main goals, along with the Disability Services Office, is to provide students with resources that help them with the registration process to apply for disability accommodations. ASD also provides a place for students with disabilities to come together to speak about their experiences. As part of this, ASD organizes guest speaker events where successful professionals living with disabilities share their experiences with an NC State audience.

One of these events is taking place Tuesday at 5 p.m. in Witherspoon Student Center. Ed Summers, a blind software engineer and senior manager at the SAS Institute in Cary, will be speaking about the importance of disabled students in a university.

  “[Summers] is an inspiring role model for students with disabilities themselves and also for the entire NC State community,” said Marcia Gumpertz, assistant vice provost for Faculty Diversity and professor of statistics at NC State. “People with disabilities such as vision loss, hearing loss, activity limitations and learning disabilities are seriously underrepresented in higher education and in the professions, in part because of misconceptions about our abilities to serve in these capacities.”

The event is open to the public. The goal of the event is to let Summers converse with students with disabilities about his experiences getting his education and starting a career despite the complications that come with disabilities. Summers will also speak about a program he has worked on with IBM that is meant to connect differently abled students with mentors who can help them with their situations. 

Boggs said the Disability Services Office works to identify the right accommodations needed for a student based on the type of disability the student might have.

“A lot of professors tend to go through information really fast and it’s hard to really focus on that when you have something [a disability] going on in the background that makes it difficult to pay attention or process information,” Boggs said. “There are a lot of inexpensive things that can get done that make bigger impacts in the classroom environment.”

Boggs gave a list of examples of different accommodations for disabled students ranging from text to speech programs, speech to text programs, posting notes online, priority registration for disabled students and special seating for disabled students, all of which can help close the gap between students with disabilities and students without. Boggs himself suffers from moderate to severe dyslexia and ADD, and he uses a smartpen to digitally record lectures while he writes in order not to miss out on any notes in class.  

ASD is open to all students and encourages differently abled students to reach out to the organization and participate in the club. More information about the organization can be found under the “Get Involved” tab of NC State’s website.

Tuesday at 5 p.m. in Witherspoon Student Center: Ed Summers, a blind software engineer and senior manager at the SAS Institute in Cary, will be speaking about the importance of disabled students in a university.