This year’s Disabled and Proud Conference at Syracuse University has drawn double the number of participants as the first conference held in 2011.

Organized by the Taishoff Center for Inclusive Higher Education, this weekend’s free conference has more than 250 students registered. The theme for the conference is “Dare to Dream.”

Over the course of the weekend, the Taishoff Center hopes to empower, educate and build alliances among attendees so they can be informed on inclusiveness in higher education and be provided with the necessary resources to access the college dream, according to the event’s press release.

Upon arrival, students will be able to attend a variety of activities including keynote addresses, informative sessions, a Disability Café and a variety show celebrating diversity inclusion that will feature students with disabilities and groups on campus. With inclusion as a top priority, every session will feature American Sign Language interpreters and Communication Access Realtime Translation live captioning to ensure all the activities are accessible to students.

Jennifer Russo, the director of marketing, communications and events at the School of Education, was the chief coordinator for the conference planning process. Russo said a small committee of students from the Disabilities Rights Activism Education and Mentoring board decided on the topics by selecting issues they felt were most important to college students with disabilities.

The conference aims to expose attendees to diverse aspects of college life by dividing their sessions into four topic strands for attendees to choose from: Tools and Resources, Knowing Yourself, Activism on Campus and Supporting Your Student. Disability activists and student leaders are planning to speak on topics relating to each strand, Russo said.

“After we developed these strands and broad topic areas, we tried to find current college students from all over the country to present on one of these strands,” she said. “People were competing for the opportunity to present one of these strands.”

Aside from the topic strands, there will also be an exhibit and resource room with over 20 national, local and SU student organizations with resources for students such as Active Minds, Project Eye to Eye and Planned Parenthood. In addition, actress Lauren Potter, activist Keith Jones and filmmaker Dan Habib are scheduled to deliver keynote addresses.

Eddie Zaremba, a graduate assistant at the Taishoff Center, said there will be plenty of time for students to ask questions and get to know each of the speakers, Potter in particular. Zaremba said Potter is intriguing because she’s a “person with a disability talking about their experience and talking to those with disabilities.”

The theme for this year’s conference, “Dare to Dream,” pays tribute to the DREAM organization and emphasizes the goal of the conference to ignite the first generation of conference goers alongside the incoming generation of conference goers.

“As we get together, it is people with disabilities who already know what people with disabilities are going to need,” Zaremba said. “We hope that when we think, work and act together in this conference, we are able to think, work, and act together as one in our own communities.”

For returning attendees like Nick Holzthum, a sophomore Information Management and Technology major and board member of DREAM, this year’s conference will not only serve as an opportunity to speak directly to his peers but also a chance to network with student leaders with diverse or similar experiences from his own.

Said Holzthum: “I am looking forward just to seeing everything, all my friends and maybe helping guide some of these students in creating a successful student organization on their campuses. I am just really excited to hear other people’s perspectives.”

Published on October 16, 2014 at 12:01 am

Contact Chizobam: cnwagwu@syr.edu