By Susan Hayya, coordinator, Adaptive Technology and Services

Adaptive Technology and Services will participate in one of the many “Divisibility” events celebrating October 2013 Disability Awareness Month. This year we are hosting Josh Swiller, author and advocate for the hard of hearing, for two events that are open to the public.

On October 16 in Foster Auditorium, 2:00 PM-3:30 PM, Swiller will participate in a panel discussion with faculty and staff who are experts on deaf culture and other issues concerning the deaf. The theme of the discussion is “What Is Big D and Small d Culture?” Also, on the panel is Swiller’s wife, Leah Murphy, who will soon be a clinical psychologist, and who for several years has led a $10 million research project on deaf education, which took her to over 30 deaf schools in 25 states. The audience for this panel discussion is students in Education, Communication Sciences and Disorders, Rehabilitation Counseling and Vocational Rehabilitation.

Swiller will also present in the Foster Auditorium, on October 17, from 7:00 PM-8:30 p.m. He will share his many experiences traveling to five different continents and his journey transitioning from being deaf to now hearing well by way of a cochlear implant. He will talk about the plight of the hundreds of millions of deaf and disabled around the world – how they are seen and not-seen in various cultures. He maps strategies for improving their situations, concentrating on day-to-day, here-and-now steps we can take to create a more accepting and compassionate world.

Both events are open to the public and are co-sponsored by the Libraries’ Adaptive Technology and Services office. Support for these events comes from the University Libraries, and from the University’s Office of the Vice Provost for Educational Equity’s Diversability Committee. Both events will have an interpreter for the deaf and a captionist.