Davie’s Office for Students with Disabilities (OSD) celebrated an extremely adventurous Disability Awareness Day on Tuesday, April 8. Festivities for students included a 25-foot rock-climbing wall, free food and an inspirational speaker, Mark Wellman.
“This day is exposure for people who have disabilities, and allowing people to be aware that there are people in the community with disabilities,” said Amy Parker, director of the Office for Students with Disabilities on the Broward campuses.
“In a person’s lifetime, one out of five people will become disabled in one way or another. Just on FAU’s Broward campuses, we have around 100 students who are registered with the disability office. It isn’t necessarily going to be someone in a wheelchair. It could be someone with ADD [Attention Deficit Disorder] or another learning disability. This day is about bringing awareness to all of FAU’s students,” Parker said.
The mission of the OSD is to support students with disabilities at FAU in their pursuit of an education. The office assists students free of charge, whether it’s for someone whose legs are paralyzed or someone with a psychological illness, such as manic depression or schizophrenia.
Accommodations provided by the OSD include note-taking assistants, materials transferred to tape or brail for the legally blind, alternative test taking in a substituted environment, and several adjustments for students with any form of a disability.
Wellman was hired by the university to give a presentation on disability awareness. The outdoor adventurer has been in a wheelchair for 21 years, after getting hurt in a climbing accident.
Wellman went back to school and earned a degree in park management, along with becoming a ranger at Yosemite National Park. He is a former member of the U.S. Disabled Ski Team and has competed in two Paralympics. He has also produced several documentary films featuring disabled individuals adapting to and tackling outdoor sports.
Outside the Liberal Arts building, the avid mountain climber motivated students to climb while serving as coach. Wellman shouted instructions 25 feet up to students scaling the wall from his wheelchair on the ground.
Wellman concluded the day’s festivities with a motivating lecture in the Language Arts auditorium, along with a short film and a slide show while discussing his climbs of monstrous rocks throughout the country, including Half Dome in Yosemite National Park.
“I go around the country to disabled organizations, college campuses, corporate events, and do motivational speaking. I have adaptive equipment in the hopes of getting some disabled students out here, getting them on the wall and doing some climbing with them. My message isn’t necessarily to go out and climb El Capitan. It’s to find the ‘El Capitan’ in your life that you are trying to conquer,” Wellman said. “It’s fun to show people some different possibilities that are out there.”
Mary Connery, a master’s student in teaching English, climbed the 25-foot wall. “I feel totally elated after getting back on the ground. It was harder than I thought. It may be extremely scary, but I want to climb more,” she said.
For more information about OSD in Davie, call 954/236-1222. For information about OSD on the Boca Raton campus, call 561/297-3880.
