March 22 - 24, 2001
Sponsored By Exxon / Mobil Corporation
Park Plaza Warwick Hotel, Houston, TX

Introduction

The 2001 Annual Meeting for Career Opportunities for Students with Disabilities (COSD) was held to bring together representatives of various entities to discuss ways in which career services for students with disabilities could be improved. The participants (please see the list of attendees on an attached document) were diverse with respect to the type of organization, level of experience with disability and geographic location. However, all participants shared the same goal of improving the career planning process for college students with disabilities with the result of increasing the employment rates for this population.

Objective

To increase career employment rates for college students and recent graduates with disabilities

Agenda Items

Thursday, March 22, 2001

Intern Panel: Four individuals participated to present their experiences as current or former college students who had internships through the Workforce Recruitment Program (WRP). Dr. Robert Greenberg of The University of Tennessee facilitated the panel discussion. Each person spoke about a specific component of college life with a disability, Career Services experiences, the career search process and the challenges of a permanent employment position in accommodating a disability. The panel members were as follows:

Regina Duncan is currently employed at the Department of Defense at the Pentagon. Her presentation discussed her transition into the college environment and the level of support she received in completing her Bachelor's and Master's degrees at East Carolina University. Regina supplemented her talk with a Power Point Presentation detailing some of the difficulties she encountered with the college environment including the unreliability of a friend being a personal assistant, the apparent unhelpful nature of the Disability Services office and the inaccessibility of key labs on campus that she needed for her course work. Regina became a strong advocate for her own interests as well as other students with disabilities. Disability Services became an ally and a resource for her over time as she felt she made a significant difference on campus at ECU. Her biggest accomplishment for herself was to become a part of the WRP. It opened a new world for her in Washington, DC and helped her to discover independence through a career opportunity and self-reliance in a large city.

Justin Waters is currently a student at the University of Nebraska - Omaha. Justin, who is deaf, is a Computer Science major and had a WRP experience as a Junior at the Department of the Army. Justin discussed several challenges he has with being a continuing student and participating in WRP.

Deborah Espinoza is currently employed at the Social Security Administration in El Paso, TX. Deborah required some accommodations during her time in a university setting and then in the workplace. She required time allowances due to difficulties with her medications stabilizing her condition. She was highly successful in her course work and has been impressive to her supervisors in SSA. She has proven herself to be an effective self-advocate which has enabled her to negotiate successfully needed accommodations in her work environment.

Karen Akins, who has a severe visual impairment, is currently employed at the Department of Education. She supplemented her talk with a Power Point presentation. She discussed her experiences as a person who gradually lost her sight and the challenges with work that resulted. Karen was very frank in her comments regarding one employer that made several mistakes in understanding the ramifications of her changing disability. At one point, senior management and Human Resources chose total avoidance of Karen and her disability, in the form of requiring her to be on long-term disability for five years and attempted to place her in a job for which was well beneath her qualifications. Legal action was required when needed accommodations were not provided. In contrast, she highlighted her positive experiences with a public sector employer who understood what was needed and hired her for a job that was within her qualifications and had a great opportunity for advancement. Karen also highlighted the assistance that Vocational Rehabilitation provided in conducting technology assessments and paying for many accommodations she needed.

Committee Updates

Education Committee

Sarah Dunham of UC Berkeley, Donna Anderson of University of Texas at Arlington and Yvette Thompson of IBM presented the updates from the various subcommittees of the Education Committee. The original vision for Education was to identify educational topics to appeal to specific constituencies including College Students with Disabilities, Employers, University Faculty and Staff. As the Committee worked through the issues, it became clear that there were significant overlaps in each of the constituencies, resulting in a shift in focus that would universally cover the different groups. The new committees were identified as Strategy, Training and Success Tracking.

Strategy Committee

The Strategy Committee is working on identifying key strategies to:

1. Obtain organizational commitment to creating more internship opportunities for students with disabilities,
2. Build student interest and readiness for obtaining internships or part-time work early in their college careers, and
3. Recruit qualified students to fill available opportunities for internships or part-time work.

In pursuing this work, the committee is keeping in mind the fact that Colleges/Universities are both suppliers and potential employers of students with disabilities.

At the Annual Meeting, there was the report of nominal progress in this area. Research was underway to move toward those strategies.

Training Committee

The Training Committee is working on the following

1. Identifying training opportunities,
2. Developing training plans and materials to prepare students with disabilities for career search process,

The Committee plans to share this information with the full Consortium by means of the COSD Web Site. In the development process, wherever possible, the Committee will model the concept of the Career Services and Disability Services Offices working together, along with Employers as appropriate.

At the Annual Meeting, there was the report of some progress in the development of materials gathered from various sources primarily within COSD.

Success Tracking Committee

The Success Tracking Committee is working on establishing the criteria and measurement systems for a report of progress. Currently, the Committee is developing tracking surveys to measure progress and assess the needs of the following:

1. Students,
2. Offices of Disability Services and Placement,
3. Employers.

It is anticipated that these surveys will be implemented annually in the fall.

At the Annual Meeting, the Committee shared extensive separate questionnaires focused on Students, Employers and Universities. The consensus of the participants at this meeting was that the questionnaires were too long and involved, requiring more information and time to complete than most people expect. As the presentation progressed, it became clear to the participants that there was a significant overlap with the mission of the Research and Follow up Committee. It was suggested that the surveys be shortened and refocused on a smaller number of issues. It was suggested that the Student surveys would be useable in a slightly shortened form.

Research and Follow up Committee

The purpose of the Committee is to provide statistical and qualitative information regarding the employment of students with disabilities.

Bob Greenberg reported that several attempts were made to gather information from a number of member universities and only UC Berkeley and the University of Tennessee provided any data.

A research bibliography was to be completed by the Annual Meeting. However, very little was presented to Bob prior to the Meeting.

A significant portion of the Committee's presentation consisted of a discussion of the Freshman Survey that was related to students with disabilities. Bob went through a number of questions asked of students and discussed several of the more interesting responses and the percentages of students with those responses.

Website Committee

David Perez presented the progress of the website through a live Internet hookup. On the initial page, he demonstrated each of the link buttons including Employers, Disability Services, Career Services, Students and Parents. Clicking each of those buttons resulted in a listing of a dozen or more links relating to specific disabilities or the disability and employment issue. There is no text content put up on the site as of yet, but plans for that to occur in the near future are in the works. As educational materials are prepared and ready for rollout, a page will be added to the site to accommodate that information. Several times, David mentioned a soon to be recurring theme in the meeting, which is funding. The website needs additional resources to accomplish these goals.

Barriers to Employment and Possible Solutions

Participants broke into small groups to identify barriers to employment of college graduates with disabilities for employers and a selection of possible solutions. The common thread among the groups were the following:

Barrier

Developing and Finding a Critical Mass of Qualified Students with Disabilities

Possible Solutions

• Develop a regional approach, several universities with significant numbers of disabled students work together to provide employers with candidates
• Push the interaction and collaboration between career services and disability services on individual campuses, involving employers in these efforts
• Identify common goals
• Identify key persons
• Cross training
• Utilize other campus resources (faculty, other networks)
• Employers need to be specific about skills required
• Employers need to provide entry-level experiences
• Campuses need to specifically invite employers
• Provide information, programs, etc. to address the disincentives students with disabilities have re: interning and career planning
• Include nontraditional students
• Role models, alumni
• Disabled student organizations
• Start in high schools
• Provide relocation info, accommodation resources, job skills training, other supports
• Involve parents

Barrier

Lack of Education - Managers/supervisors and campus personnel

Possible Solutions

• Provide consultants or a speakers bureau - a COSD sponsored training team to present best practices, success stories, etc. at NACE, AHEAD, and to employers
• Design current COSD website to include easy to use education modules, referral systems, resumes of qualified students with disabilities, etc.
• Use experienced managers and HR
• Partnerships with college recruiters and diversity recruiters
• Success stories

Barrier

Lack of Top Support (CEO's/University Presidents)

Possible Solutions

• Better demonstrate value-added justification, make our mission statement more clearly to the employer constituency and align business goals to hiring goals
• Use student and industry spokespersons, alumni (potential donors), show stats not stereotypes
• National Mentoring Day, letter writing to CEOs, Disability Awareness events or other projects to insure commitment, build incentives, establish routine trainings for managers. Awards to 'disability-friendly' employers
• Create foundations for funding, look into long term funding and staffing

Employer Best Practices

Microsoft

Emily McKeon presented Microsoft's view of disability and employment through a Power Point presentation. Microsoft recruits from all sources and uses education to break down barriers and misperceptions. Reasonable workplace accommodations are readily available to employees and managers are encouraged to be imaginative in this process. Another focus of the company is Employee Networks through Diversity Councils. There are 21 of them and of that number three are disability related including HUDDLE (Deaf and Hard of Hearing), MSADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) and MSVIP (Visually Impaired Persons). Microsoft has three goals for its future in this area:

• Increase the employment of people with disabilities
• Develop technology to eliminate most workplace barriers
• Create greater progress, awareness and help many of the myths and lowered expectations about people with disabilities

President's Committee for the Employment of Persons with Disabilities (PCEPD)

Paul Meyer presented for PCEPD and his primary focus was on the Workforce Recruitment Program (WRP). He stated that over 180 schools this year had recruiting visits from hiring personnel of several US Government agencies from around the country. The CD ROMs containing the resumes of several hundred students with disabilities were scheduled for distribution in April.

IBM

Yvette Thompson presented for IBM through a Slide Program. She focused on the Project ABLE Program, which is charged with recruiting persons with disabilities as employees of IBM. She also discussed the history and recent results, which have been improving.

University Best Practices

The University of Tennessee

Crystal Higgins presented for UT through a Power Point presentation. She detailed the history and creation of the Disability Careers Office (DCO). The primary focus of the Office is to be a conduit to funnel students with disabilities into the existing Career Services infrastructure and to be welcomed there by the staff. The DCO is not meant to replace or replicate Career Services and Crystal is not a "disability expert" within the Career Services office as her office is adjacent to Disability Services. Two tasks performed by the Office are to train the UT Career Services staff to be more attuned to the specific needs of students with disabilities in their career search and to train students to be more aware of their disability and self-advocacy. Staff training sessions included Disability Etiquette, Disclosure, Accommodations, ADA regulations and other related topics. Crystal works one on one with students on some of the basics of the career search, but provides added value in discussing disclosure and accommodation strategies. She has a base of nearly 1000 students with whom the Office communicates through e-mail. These students are identified through Vocational Rehabilitation and UT Disability Services Office. The core number of students that she provides direct services is approximately 133. Projected results were very favorable and encouraging with approximately 50 students actively seeking permanent employment, part time work or internships through the Office and ultimately through Career Services.

University of California at Berkeley

Connie Chiba and Sarah Dunham presented for UC Berkeley through a Power Point presentation. Berkeley has a long history in the disability movement as being the birthplace of the Independent Living movement. In keeping with that history, there is significant collaboration between various departments on campus and Disability Services. To ensure that there is collaboration between the Career Center and Disability Services, Sarah is a .40 FTE who is designated to work with students with disabilities. Sarah also provides regularly scheduled drop-in hours at Disability Services for career issues and counseling. The objectives of the Career Center are to:

1. Provide access to all programs and resources
2. Provide customized programming to students with disabilities as well as those faculty and staff promoting internship and experiential education for students with disabilities
3. Support focused recruitment efforts by employers, such as through WRP and Entry Point!

Keynote Address - Jonathan Young - A National Perspective on Disability and Employment

Jonathan Young is the Former Associate Director of Disability Outreach at the Office of Public Liaison for the White House in Washington, DC. Jonathan's speech revolved around a couple of themes. He used his recent experience with being the principal organizer of National Disability Mentoring Day as an indication of the US Government's commitment to providing support to organizations that foster the career advancement of people with disabilities. He discussed the effect of the Day as being very positive for both employers and people with disabilities. The other theme was the need for organizations such as COSD to flourish with the cooperation of employers working with universities. He was greatly encouraging to the group as he stated how impressed he was with the discussion he had heard over the previous day. Jonathan felt that this meeting represents a very concrete start to an organization that can make an impact on a national basis.

Saturday, March 24, 2001

The two-hour segment for the morning was devoted to a "brainstorming" session about next steps for COSD. Some of the suggestions made from the participants to the Steering Committee are as follows:

• Funding to pay for an administrator and support staff
• Develop a plan for structure including the redefinition of committees and refocus overall committee directions and priorities
• Membership issues including growth, orientation of new members and retention of members to keep those persons engaged in the activities of COSD
• Develop a market plan for growth and recruitment
• Explore Alliances with such national organizations as AHEAD, NASPA, NACE, Association of College Presidents
• Conference planning to include more educational and attractive activities to include more members
• Explore/develop student involvement - focus
• Develop timelines to meet goals
• Long-term mission including the need to develop projects
• Regionalizing COSD to better cover the country and provide a uniform message
• Retooling Objective - "Best Practices" vs. numbers

Look at doable goals:

• Encourage collaboration amongst Career Services / Disability Services / Employers
• Mentoring
• Internships

Thank you again to everyone who attended as all of the input provided was valuable to us. We look forward to working closely with each of you on this issue in the next several months.