In a recent email from the ASUCD president, the Disabilities Rights and Advocacy Committee shared its survey on the on-campus experience for students with disabilities
By EMILY REDMAN — campus@theaggie.org
The ASUCD Disabilities Rights and Advocacy Committee (DRAC) issued a survey in the most recent email from ASUCD President Ryan Manriquez to gather information from students with disabilities on campus. The survey will be available until Jan. 14.
“We wanted to know this student experience here at Davis and from the perspective of being a disabled student because we didn’t know what needed to be addressed,” Sarah Theubet, the chair for DRAC and a fourth-year communication major, said.
The survey includes questions for students with disabilities about campus resources and accessibility on campus. DRAC is hoping to use the results from this survey to see what changes need to be made to the campus, according to Stephen Fujimoto, the chairperson for the research and data committee and a third-year cognitive science major, who assisted in creating this survey.
“[The survey] is about academic accommodations students with disabilities receive, and we’re trying to get some information on that as well as campus accessibility,” Fujimoto said.
The survey is open to anyone with any disability whether they utilize on-campus resources or not.
“What a lot of people don’t realize is that, especially through this pandemic, there was an increase in anxiety and depression, those are mental health diagnoses, they put you in the neurodivergent community, and you do then have a disability,” Theubet said.
She also said that DRAC is working to educate people on the possibility of having a disability and inform them on what resources are available to them.
“DRAC is tackling a variety of issues present on campus, with projects from infrastructure and remote learning accommodations, to updating campus dining halls for accessibility,” the announcement in Manriquez’s email states.
Following the results of this survey, Theubet looks forward to seeing changes made that she hopes will benefit the whole of the UC Davis community.
“As a visually-impaired person, I struggle a lot with getting lost very easily,” Theubet said. “Things are not well marked and the map is not always easy to follow. There are so many cracks in the roads that it’s just not safe.”
According to Fujimoto, the survey will help to make a difference for all communities on campus.
“Abled students’ techniques also support the disabled community here on campus, it really does make campus a better place for all of us,” Fujimoto said. “It’s not just special treatment for [disabled students], it helps all of us.”
Written by: Emily Redman — campus@theaggie.org
