On the wall of Barbara K. Bazinsky’s office is a painting of faces. Two of the faces look toward the center. The others look toward the opposing sides. Together they form an upper body. The open hands reveal a captive lion. An Ethiopian proverb is written above the figures: “When spider webs unite they can tie up a lion.”

“Basically what that means,” says Bazinsky, “is that if we all work together to achieve a common goal, it can be accomplished.”

Bazinsky, a counselor and coordinator of student affairs at FAU’s Office for Students with Disabilities, works with both students and staff to make sure that any student who has a disability can be assisted. A sign on Bazinsky’s shelf states, “Life isn’t about finding yourself; it’s about creating yourself.” She believes that people need to reach out for life’s opportunities.

In terms of (the quote) having to do with people with disabilities, (it means that) it would be very easy to just sit back and wait for opportunities to come to you. … I think it’s very important that for everyone, not just people with disabilities,” Bazinsky says, “to be proactive in doing things to make your life the way you want it to be.”

In Room 133 of the Student Support Services building, Bazinsky sits behind a reddish brown desk that nearly matches the hue of her hair. A pink breast cancer ribbon is pinned to her bright red button-down sweater. Her green eyes sparkle from behind a pair of turquoise wire-rimmed glasses.

“One of the things that I emphasize and that the office emphasizes,” she says, “is empowering the student to advocate for himself rather than just providing services like they were done in high school.”

Teaching self-advocacy, Bazinsky says, is important because students will need to know how to talk about their disabilities to future emoloyers so that they receive the proper accommodations.

When students submit applications to the Office of Students with Disabilities, Bazinsky evaluates whether they indeed have a disability. They must give medical documentation of their disability. Bazinsky takes into account whether the disability impairs the applicant from functioning as a student.

“Once we’ve determined that it does document the disability, then we look a little bit more closely and determine what accommodations would be reasonable for a school to provide and that would be helpful for the student to access education,” she explains. Some students need accommodations such as longer time for taking tests or a volunteer notetaker. Others use the equipment of which Bazinsky takes inventory, such as tape recorders, four-track records for books on tape, Franklin spellers, magnifiers for the visually impaired, laptops and FM systems for better hearing.

Most of the students who come to Bazinsky for help have learning disabilities such as Attention Deficit Disorder. Part of Bazinsky’s job is to help the students learn to be organized and develop management skills. “Many times, after a month or two, a student, after he’s gotten into the groove, is fine. … This is true for a variety of students with disabilities,” she says.

Another important aspect of Bazinsky’s job is being a good listener. The disabilities that students have might cause them to be stigmatized and want a sympathetic shoulder upon which to lean.

Occasionally a student will be harassed by peers. “We’re not trained counselors, but definitely when students come in here and they’re having problems, we would not say, ‘We can’t listen to you.’ … Since (FAU) is fortunate enough to have a counseling service, I don’t deal much with personal counseling as with specifically academic issues,” she notes.

From an early age, Bazinsky understood the troubles of the disabled. A friend of her grandmother had a son who was disabled. “Somebody with (a serious) disability generally would have been hidden rather than taken with his mother in public and been employed,” she recalls. “However, at that time there was no way that anyone outside of the family would have employed him. It led me to question why that was, because he was obviously quite capable.”

Bazinsky says that helping others was always pretty much a career goal for her. As a child and an adolescent, she dreamed of becoming a psychiatrist. However, when she later took science courses she realized that she was not meant to be a psychiatrist. She graduated from the University of Florida and received a master’s degree in special education at the University of Illinois. She then worked in vocational rehabilitiation and as a social worker for the elderly. After having her two sons, now grown, she was hired as a disabilities counselor at Broward Community College.

“I’ve always enjoyed working with adolescents, so I thought that I’d enjoy working with college-age (students) and as it turns out, I do,” Bazinsky notes. However, as students were only with her for two years, she did not get to track their full progress.”As this (FAU) is a four-year university, so many times I’ll start working with a student as a freshman and then I get to see their emotional growth and see them all the way through to graduation. … That’s really nice.”

Bazinsky, at FAU since 1990, works with a variety of students. “The more understanding you have of where people are coming from, in many respects, the better you’re able to listen and take what they’re saying in the cultural context.”

Although many of the students who see Bazinsky are of typical college age, some are non-traditional students. “There are a number of students who come back to school. They had not had success when they were in school,” she explains, “because they did not test for learning disabilities then. They were just led to believe that they were stupid. And they decided to go back to school and were tested and, lo and behold, find that they’re plenty smart but that they just have learning issues.”

Bazinsky adds, “We’re not giving them an unfair advantage; we’re just leveling out the playing field so that they have the same access to education.” Doing so requires Bazinsky to do team work with both students and other staff members. Piece by piece, they are all spinning the web of opportunity.