Student Accessibility Advocates Warrant More Credit
October 7, 2016
To the Editors:
Sydney Allen’s article, “Report Unpacks Campus Climate on Disability,” (The Oberlin Review, Sept. 16, 2016) gives the Working Group on Disability and Access too much credit for a unique and successful peer-mentoring program. I write to correct the notion that we founded Student Accessibility Advocates, or SAAs. We did not. Sponsored by the Office of Disability Services, the SAAs were well-established by the time our working group first convened. If our work was at all successful, it is due in no small measure to the input of student member and SAA Rebecca Klein, as well as the SAAs’ leader, Associate Director of Disability Services Isabella Moreno.
As an Oberlin press release in 2012 and a 2016 article in The Source describe in detail, this outstanding program was funded by a generous gift from the family of a former Oberlin student. Their gift and the hard work of the Student Accessibility Advocates merit our deep appreciation.
– Elizabeth C. Hamilton
Associate Professor and Chair of German Language and Literature
ADA/Section 504 Coordinator
