Date: July – August 2000

Location: University at Buffalo, State University of New York

Description: In the United States, providing access to higher education for disabled people has been addressed at many different levels. Throughout Latin America, in comparison, such access to higher education is more limited. The workshop "Access to Higher Education and People with Disabilities" was provided as an enrichment activity to the intensive English language program at the University at Buffalo's English Language Institute. Seventeen LASPAU-administered Fulbright and FUNDACYT grantees from Latin America participated. Most of them were faculty members at higher education institutions in their home countries. The project exposed these students to an aspect of U.S. culture and society that is directly relevant to their professional work yet is not addressed anywhere else during their academic programs. The project also allowed them to learn about issues, models, and strategies that might be adapted to their own home institutions.

The workshop focused on issues including:

• Cultural perceptions of people with disabilities; social and institutional assumptions of their rights
• Types of disabilities/definitions of disabilities
• The issues involved in access to higher education for people with disabilities
• How access to higher education works in the United States

Sponsors: Partial support for this workshop was provided by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the United States Department of State through a grant from the Cooperative Grants Program of NAFSA: Association of International Educators. Other sponsors included: the English Language Institute (ELI) at the University at Buffalo (UB) and the Center for International Rehabilitation Research Information and Exchange (CIRRIE), also at UB.

Host Institution: English Language Institute, University at Buffalo

Facilitators: Randy Borst (Faculty, Disability Services at the University at Buffalo), Martha Cox (Staff, LASPAU), Kathy Curtis (Staff, English Language Institute), Anne Lazerson (Staff, LASPAU), Susan Nochajski (Faculty, Occupational Therapy Program, University at Buffalo), John Stone (Staff, Center for International Rehabilitation Research Information and Exchange), Steven Truesdale (Faculty, Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center on Universal Design, University at Buffalo), and
Douglas Usiak (Faculty, Western New York Independent Living Center)