San Diego State students, faculty member successfully campaign to keep "Disability and Society" course as part of curriculum

From The Daily Aztec at San Diego State University:

From parking structures to the interior of bathroom stalls, fliers could be found around campus reading, “We want this class!!!!!!!!”

Instructor Mendy McClure, her class of 137 students and her teaching assistants have spent the first part of this semester campaigning through letter writing, word-of-mouth and posters to prevent their class from being cut and to lift the enrollment cap off of the upper division General Studies 420 course known as “Disability and Society.” The class focuses on the human experience of individuals with disabilities, such as the attitudes toward individuals and interrelationships between societal institutions and needs of people with disabilities, according to the San Diego State General Catalog.

Sept. 10, McClure was ecstatic as the College of Education decided to open enrollment of the class to a total of 300 students, she said.

“As it worked out, this fall GS420 was offered (and) there were students that registered for it,” Dean of the College of Education, Dr. Ric A. Hovda, said. “We did have to cap it until we could see how the rest of our numbers looked … and we have some room so we will open that section up to more students. I’m impressed that so many students cared so much and helped a whole campus see how important this course is, so I have great admiration for seeing the posters up and people advocating.”

“Of course I started to cry, I was ecstatic,” McClure said. “I sent out a thank-you to my class, my 137 troops I call them, because I really feel, I deeply feel, that if it wasn’t for their effort, I don’t think on my own this would have ever been possible.”

The enrollment cap was placed on the class because of a change in the target number of full time equivalent students given by the Cal State University system to SDSU, giving each college within the university new FTES targets as well, Hovda said.

McClure said the reason why the class was still offered this semester was because students signed up for the class in early enrollment, before the decision to discontinue the class was made, and this could have possibly put students’ graduation in jeopardy.

“This summer I was told the class was cut one day after the 20th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, one day before The San Diego Union-Tribune came out with an article about how friendly the San Diego State University campus was toward students who were in the gay and lesbian minority groups,” McClure said. “And the school is going to go out and celebrate the fact that they have all of this diversity, and all this excitement about this particular minority group while they just cut the only class (about disability); it was unconscionable and it was morally wrong.”

People with disabilities represent the largest minority group in the country, McClure said.

“It’s most definitely an important class,” Director of Diversity in the Office of the President, Aaron Bruce, said. “One of the reasons it’s important is this is one group that crosses so many different types of diversity, whether it’s sexual orientation or age or ethnicity or religion, gender, all of those groups potentially have people who have disabilities, so therefore it is everyone’s concern and it is a part of humanity to address.”

“I don’t think people should feel sorry or pity disabled people because that doesn’t really help anybody, but instead learn how to treat them like you would normally treat someone; I think that’s what is really important about this class,” finance senior Justin Wei said.

“Students who are going to be graduating from here are going to be going into fields where they are going to be dealing with people with disabilities,” GS420 student and psychology junior Angela Van Ostran said. “I think it would do a disservice to the students who are graduating from here and entering the workforce if this class is not here.”

The College of Education does not currently know if it will be offering this course in the spring or placing an enrollment cap on the current number of students, but will be re-evaluating the situation before then, Hovda said.