Features

Dis­abil­ity, the Work­place and Maryville


Over the past few decades, Amer­i­can so­ci­ety has be­gun to try to in­clude mul­ti­ple types of peo­ple in daily life who, prior to then, had been ig­nored. One such group is peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties.

Since 1988, ac­cord­ing to the Of­fice of Dis­abil­ity Em­ploy­ment Pol­i­cy’s web­site, the gov­ern­ment has des­ig­nated Oc­to­ber Na­tional Dis­abil­ity Em­ploy­ment Aware­ness Month, hav­ing pre­vi­ously des­ig­nated a week in Oc­to­ber for the honor in 1945. This month is a month to com­mem­o­rate the ad­vances made so far, and the ad­vances yet to be made, in em­ploy­ing those with dis­abil­i­ties.

How far, though, has this mon­th’s spirit re­ally gone when it comes to its stated goals? Where does so­ci­ety still need to go? What role has Maryville played in the process of em­ploy­ment of peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties? Where could we go from where we are?

For Bob Cun­ning­ham, the Di­rec­tor of Maryville’s Oc­cu­pa­tional Ther­apy pro­gram and an as­so­ci­ate pro­fes­sor of oc­cu­pa­tional ther­apy, progress has been made. For in­stance, the per­son re­spon­si­ble for as­sist­ing those with dis­abil­i­ties, the Di­rec­tor of Dis­abil­ity Ser­vices, used to have mul­ti­ple re­spon­si­bil­i­ties in the po­si­tion. How­ever, he said, “What I’ve seen is that Maryville has re­de­fined that role to fo­cus on meet­ing the needs of stu­dents with dis­abil­i­ties”.

As a re­sult, the cur­rent Di­rec­tor of Dis­abil­ity Sup­port and Suc­cess is able to fo­cus more on sup­port­ing in­di­vid­ual stu­dents, in ad­di­tion to ed­u­cat­ing our cam­pus com­mu­nity on in­di­vid­u­als with dis­abil­i­ties. He added that Maryville’s com­mit­ment to di­ver­sity in­cludes wel­com­ing stu­dents and po­ten­tial em­ploy­ees with dis­abil­i­ties, and that “Maryville has made a lot of good steps to­ward wel­com­ing peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties” in the time he has been there.

While Al­li­son Fuller’s role as the Di­rec­tor of Dis­abil­ity Sup­port and Ser­vices does not di­rectly sup­port Maryville em­ploy­ees, the Hu­man Re­sources de­part­ment ac­com­mo­dates in­di­vid­u­als with dis­abil­i­ties through­out the hir­ing process, dur­ing on­board­ing, and through em­ploy­ment.

Tam­mie Lor­den, Hu­man Re­sources Op­er­a­tions Co­or­di­na­tor at Maryville, said that Maryville’s HR de­part­ment makes open­ings for op­por­tu­ni­ties and po­si­tions are avail­able to “all ap­pli­cants.” Thus, they try to post to ar­eas where all in­ter­ested peo­ple can see them. If an ap­pli­cant re­quests ac­com­mo­da­tions, the de­part­ment will pro­vide them.

In the fu­ture, she said, Maryville will con­tinue to try to post po­si­tion avail­abil­i­ties in ways that en­sure peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties will see the po­si­tions and pro­vide ap­pro­pri­ate ac­com­mo­da­tions when re­quested.

How­ever, for all the pos­i­tive signs, Cun­ning­ham noted that bar­ri­ers do still ex­ist. Among them, he said, is the fact that peo­ple er­ro­neously be­lieve that ac­com­mo­dat­ing peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties will be ex­pen­sive, de­spite the fact that costs are ac­tu­ally much lower than peo­ple usu­ally think. Fuller con­curred.

One of Na­tional Dis­abil­ity Em­ploy­ment Aware­ness Mon­th’s key com­po­nents, in her view, is to cel­e­brate in­di­vid­u­als with dis­abil­i­ties and cre­ate a work­force that em­pow­ers every­one. The goal is to en­sure ac­cess to ser­vices and sup­ports that en­able in­di­vid­u­als with dis­abil­i­ties to work.

Cun­ning­ham added, re­gard­ing peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties. “I think too much of our fo­cus is on what they think they can’t do”, rather than what they can do. In ad­di­tion, peo­ple may not know how to ac­com­mo­date peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties.

He also said that he thinks there needs to be aware­ness of dif­fer­ent types of dis­abil­i­ties that can be ac­com­mo­dated.

Fuller, for her part, hopes to see the em­ploy­ment rate for peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties in­crease. She be­lieves the in­creased rate is a “nat­ural out­come of Na­tional Dis­abil­ity Em­ploy­ment Aware­ness Month‘s em­ployer fo­cus”. Na­tional Dis­abil­ity Em­ploy­ment Aware­ness Month em­pow­ers em­ploy­ers to do more than sim­ply hire in­di­vid­u­als with dis­abil­i­ties.

Fuller be­lieves that Na­tional Dis­abil­ity Em­ploy­ment Aware­ness Mon­th’s mis­sion “em­pow­ers com­pa­nies to change their cul­ture, to re­view out­dated ableist poli­cies, train su­per­vi­sors, men­tor and so much more”. The goal is that com­pa­nies will feel em­pow­ered to hire in­di­vid­u­als with dis­abil­i­ties.

 

Robert Cunningham sits in his office. Cunningham, the Director and an associate professor of Maryville’s occupational therapy program, believes that while there has been progress made regarding the employment of people with disabilities, work does still need to be done. Photo Courtesy of Dylan Farmer.

Director of Disability Service and Success Alison Fuller’s official Maryville photo. Photo Courtesy of Maryville University Faculty directory.

For fur­ther in­for­ma­tion, visit the of­fi­cial site of the Of­fice of Dis­abil­ity Em­ploy­ment Pol­icy.

 

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