Welcome to the Disability Committee Homepage
The Disability Committee was created in the Fall of 2019. It is a work committee within the Philosophy Graduate Student Organization (PGSO).
What is our role?
As a committee, we recognize that academic ableism within our university and in society at large intersects with racism, classism, transphobia, sizeism, and heterosexism. Our role is to defend the interests of disabled graduate students in our department, assist our colleagues in accessing legal accommodations for their disability; and work to eliminate access barriers for all graduate students (disabled and nondisabled) in our department.
What do you mean by “disability”?
We hold a broad definition of disability that recognizes both documented and undocumented physical, psychological, cognitive, chemical, and learning-related conditions, keeping in mind how both the distribution of these conditions and their diagnosis are differentially allocated along interlocking lines of racial, class, and gender privilege and subordination.
What if I don’t identify as disabled?
Whether or not you identify as disabled, crip, chronically ill, loca, sick, mad, neuroatypical, some combination of these or none of the above, we care about your access needs and are here to help you in any way we can
Who are the current committee members?
Marie-Anne Perreault (she/her). Contact me at mzp5851@psu.edu.
Ben Decarie-Daigneault (he/him). Contact me at bqd5342@psu.edu.
Julianne Mann (she/her). Contact me at jem6542@psu.edu.
Michelle Meeks (she/her). Contact me at mlm7082@psu.edu.