Emory University Faculty Resources for Disabilities Resources

Disabilities Studies at Emory

In May, 2006, twelve faculty from across Emory University gathered for the first Provost’s Faculty Seminar in Disability Studies. The two-day seminar was led by disability studies scholars Rosemarie Garland-Thomson of the Emory Department of Women's Studies and Nancy L. Eiesland of the Candler School of Theology and the Graduate Division of Religion. The purpose of the Seminar was to encourage faculty to integrate the study of disability and bring disability issues forward throughout the Emory community. The goal of the seminar was to inspire and equip faculty to incorporate disability studies topics, issues, or perspectives into their teaching. By introducing the perspectives of the new field of disability studies, the Seminar aimed to transform scholarship and teaching across the arts and sciences at Emory. The internationally known guest scholars who presented at the Seminar introduced Emory faculty participants to new interdisciplinary scholarship and research that sees disability as a cultural category similar to gender and race rather than a medical problem. The seminar outcome was a set of syllabi submitted by the faculty participants for a new or revised course that integrates disability studies into the subject of the course.

The assumptions that underlie the Seminar are that integrating research and teaching about disability across the University will:

Foster an equitable learning, living, and knowledge-generating environment that will sustain the widest intended range of diverse community members
Promote inclusive, sustainable human development
Encourage ethically engaged scholarship and teaching
Make Emory a destination University that is fully accessible to the widest range of community members we intend to include and attract
Build collaborations across the health sciences, humanities, and social sciences

Emory University has a distinctive opportunity to go beyond the legal obligation to provide disability accommodations and protect against discrimination. Emory can be pioneer in reshaping the conception of disability. Disability is more than just a physical or mental impairment. Accessibility is more than just compliance with federal and state laws. Disability is about the human condition.
The Emory community would be enhanced by a broader conceptualization of disability that calls for inclusion, integration, and equality.