Disability Studies

The Disability Studies Minor is flexible with a large selection of GE units to choose from. Students will take 9 units of core courses and 9 units of electives. Electives are interdisciplinary in that students can choose courses from a wide variety of different departments or majors. Students can tailor the courses taken toward completion of the minor to meet their unique professional interests and major.

Disability is a cultural experience. Disability Studies uses an interdisciplinary perspective to explore the disability experience. Disability Studies questions concepts such as "normalcy" and analyzes "difference" through origins, institutions, policies, philosophies, culture, and traditions. The concept of disability has legal, medical, political, social, and temporal variations and implications. Like Africana Studies, Gender and Women's Studies, and Asian American Studies, Disability Studies is an academic study developed through the emergence of a Social Justice and Civil Rights Movement – the Disability Rights Movement. As such, the interdisciplinary nature of this minor, which brings together contributions from a variety of fields and disciplines decenters the conception of disability as solely a medical problem or an educational concern, but rather an identity and a way of living in the world.

This interdisciplinary minor can enhance a student's career by preparing them to understand the nature of disabilities, the meaning of disability in our society, the social, political, and health implications of disability, and methods of making our society more inclusive to those who live with disabilities. The program can also prepare students to work with individuals with disabilities in a variety of community settings.

The Disability Studies Minor also can contribute to the professional development of students. Those who complete the Minor will have the opportunity to have at least one significant experience with community service. Such experiences can help students make important contacts in their chosen professions, and students can develop important skills for collaborating respectfully and responsibly with others. Such experiences also clarify how topics from the classroom can be applied in real-world circumstances.

The Minor’s requirements make it easy to integrate with a student’s General Education courses or the student’s major.