There's a new energy on campus focusing on understanding the lives of people with disabilities, say leaders of some UC Davis groups committed to those goals.
Just this quarter, a new Disabled Student Union has sprung up to help those students form a social network on campus.
And two UC Davis professors have begun collaborating with colleagues at UC Berkeley and San Francisco State University on the Greater Bay Area Interuniversity Consortium on Disability Studies. The group, funded through a one-year $25,000 National Endowment for the Humanities grant, plans to develop classes and curricula on disability issues.
The Forum on Disability Issues, an employee advocacy group, is also planning some new activities.
"We feel a lot of excitement," said Diane Adams, associate director of the Women's Center and a member of the forum. "We've been working on issues for a long time, and we are finally seeing things come together."
The forum, which is already involved in accessibility issues on campus, is considering starting a regular reading group and a video series focused on disability issues next quarter. The group is also promoting the work of the faculty consortium and helping the Disabled Student Union organize.
In union gatherings, disabled students at UC Davis will finally have a place to congregate, said Tesia Poponyak, a fifth-year student and the group's first president.
"You do the little wave on campus (to other disabled students)," said Poponyak, who has cerebral palsy and uses crutches. "You think maybe we are a little similar."
But mostly disabled students are isolated on campus, and in social groups, tend to try to ignore their differences, she said.
Along with social activities, the union hopes to host a teach-in to educate students about the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Associate Professor of American Studies Ruth Frankenberg, a member of the disability studies consortium along with Associate Professor of History Cathy Kudlick, said the upsurge in campus activity comes at a time when academia and society are beginning to look at the lives of the disabled in a very different way.
"If there is something that marks a new moment, it's a recognition that we must look at the social, cultural and political dimensions of what it's like to live in a disabled body," said Frankenberg, who has multiple scerlosis.
Previously, both scholars and the public were merely interested in the medical aspects of disabled people's lives, she said. Now, UC Berkeley is planning to develop an interdisciplinary disability studies major and minor, she said. San Francisco State has opened its Institute on Disability that sponsors diverse types of research projects.
At UC Davis, Frankenberg plans to use the feedback she gets from other members of the consortium - including noted San Francisco State filmmaker Paul Longmore - to help develop the disabilities unit in her class "Living in Bodies, Body Politics," which tackles society's "ranking" of human bodies according to race, gender, disability and ability.
Kudlick, who already teaches a course on seeing and hearing in history, is planning next year to offer UC Davis' first course on disability issues as a part of the Cultural Studies graduate program.
Her course - like all those on disabilities - is likely to tackle problems in history, sociology, anthropology, economics and medicine, she said.
"There can really be nothing bigger," said Kudlick, who is legally blind. "It's about the essence of being human."
If students and faculty without a disability take the perspective that they are only "temporarily abled," the disability awareness movement is sure to grow on campus, Frankenberg said. After all, she said, "Anyone without any particular notice can join (the disabled) community."