Reaching the Overlooked Minority on Your Campus

When you think about reaching out to students and groups on campus to recruit for the Fulbright Program, what kind of student are you picturing? Did you consider the student who holds a printed Fulbright flyer to the end of his nose and scans the script closely with his left eye?  Over 25 years ago, the now best-selling author of The Planet of the Blind, Stephen Kuusisto, who is legally blind, was such a student.  He spent a year studying poetry in Helsinki, Finland on a Fulbright U.S. Student Program grant.  “It was one of the signature experiences of my life; I was lucky the Fulbright Program worked to include people with disabilities over a quarter century ago,” says Kuusisto. “Today, as a professor of English at the University of Iowa, I still have connections to my Fulbright year.” 

On today’s campuses, students with disabilities make up approximately 11% of the student body.  Yet until you consider your message and how it reaches these students most directly, doubts may keep the next future best-selling author or cutting edge scientist with a disability from applying to the Fulbright Program.  

Three ways to reach out to people with disabilities:

1. Mention to everyone you speak with that diversity of applicants is important to the Fulbright Program and specifically add that this includes applicants with disabilities. Share that the Fulbright Program has provided necessary disability-related accommodations and services to past participants. The majority of students with disabilities on campus do not have readily apparent disabilities, so mentioning this to general audiences can make a difference to those with undisclosed disabilities.
2. Provide materials in different formats.  A campus radio message, podcast or email in a text format will reach blind students on campus more than a flyer on a bulletin board or a PDF form.  Also, check if your website meets federal accessibility standards (see: Web accessibility Resources).  For example, add captions or transcripts to video interviews.  When planning an information session, include in the announcement that the location is wheelchair accessible and add information about how to request disability-related accommodations, such as a sign language interpreter.  This is legally required to provide equal access, and the disability service provider on every campus can work with you to make arrangements with advance notice.
3. Reach out to disability groups.  This can include disability services offices, TRIO programs, disability student unions, adaptive recreation and sports programs, tutoring and learning centers, counseling and health centers, and disability studies, rehabilitation, deaf studies or special education departments.  Also, post Fulbright opportunities and deadlines to disability lists of student service providers and academic advisers (see: Student Affairs Listservs on Disability Issues).
   

Now is the time to actively diversify your efforts to include applicants with disabilities that may have been overlooked previously so that they can have the same lifetime opportunity as those who have gone before them.

Since 1998, Michele Scheib has worked with the National Clearinghouse on Disability and Exchange (NCDE), a project to increase the participation and inclusion of people with disabilities in international exchange programs. The NCDE is sponsored by the U.S. Department of State and administered by Mobility International USA; the Institute of International Education is on the NCDE Roundtable Consortium. Learn more on the website at: http://www.miusa.org/ncde/fulbright.

This was published in the Institute of International Education's Fulbright Program Adviser Newsletter, Issue 32, July 2009.