“People with disabilities are no longer willing to be reduced to their medical parts, or to be used as pawns in running disability charities or governmental programs. Instead, they demand full participation in society,” says Dr. Patricia Murphy, director of The University of Toledo’s Disability Studies Program. According to Murphy, it’s this movement that has led to the start of the University’s new program to teach students to look at disability as a social and political category, not as a medical condition to be treated.

The University of Toledo, Ohio, has established the first disabilities studies program in the nation that will offer both a bachelor’s degree and a minor in the field. Several other universities including the Ohio State University and the University of Michigan of Ann Arbor are working to develop similar programs. “This is not a degree program about fixing or treating people with disabilities,” explains Murphy. “The program focuses on the history, culture, social and political aspects of this minority group.”

Disability studies, as an academic discipline, is running just behind the disability movement which hopes to do what all humanistic disciplines do: codify, explore, preserve, teach and celebrate the human experience.

A compelling example of the movement is the $1.9 million grant an independent living center in Toledo, the Ability Center of Greater Toledo, gave the University to help establish the Disabilities Studies Program. The grant supports a three-year professorship and a four-year endowment plan to create an endowed chair for the program. “This is our investment in the future for people with disabilities,” said Shelley Papenfuse, director of grants administration for the Ability Center. “We see this program having a long-term impact on people with disabilities and the way people without disabilities perceive us.”

“This gift turns our stereotypical ideas about people with disabilities upside down and inside out. That is, telethons have trained us to think of disabled people as objects of charity and not as the givers and the people who make important contributions to higher education,” added Murphy. “The gift from the Ability Center, is not just a gift of money, but a gift of partnership and of expertise gained in the disability rights movement over the last 30 years.”

Murphy leads a creative writing group that focuses on disability studies. Amy Marsh, who is a special education teacher, signed up for the group, “Writing the Disability Story,” to help her deal with the loss of her daughter, Abbie. Abbie died from Leukodystrophy, a rare genetic disorder that attacks the myelin coating of the brain.

Marsh, who has received extra help through out her life to overcome a learning disability, said that the program and Murphy’s expertise are not only helping her cope, but she’s also earning the final three credit hours she needs to receive her permanent teaching certificate. “For the past year I have felt a real need to write about my life with Abbie,” explains Marsh. “I looked without success for a professor who would work with me on this project, until I found Dr. Murphy. She had been looking for a student with a disability to help write, and I had been looking for a professor to help me write. A perfect fit.”

In addition to expanded public knowledge about disabilities, the program also educates the next leaders of the disability rights movement and enhances career opportunities for persons living with and without disabilities currently working in disability related agencies and programs.

For more information about UT’s Disability Studies Program, contact Murphy at 419.530.7245 or visit www.dstprg.utoledo.edu.