During the session with college/university representatives, career services and disability services professionals discussed a number of questions and shared ideas to further the success of students with disabilities as they prepare for transition to employment. The following document summarizes and highlights responses to the various questions posed to the group.

What are ideas and best practices to encourage employer diversity recruitment to include disability?

• Increase communication between career services and disability services offices. Consider occasional joint meetings
• Career Services and Disability Services Offices could co-sponsor events for recruiters.
• Start with encouraging employers who are already visiting campus to meet with and be aware of students with disabilities.
• Identify points of contact for the employers and clarify responsibilities for staff in each office (CS and DS). Know who is interfacing between employer and campus and be sure he/she is aware of how to best include students with disabilities.
• Provide training between CS and DS offices to increase understanding of issues specific to students with disabilities, especially regarding employer recruitment activities.
• Model the success of other carefully developed programs to encourage the recruitment of students from other "groups". (i.e. African-Americans, Hispanics, etc.)
• Provide additional training for students regarding self-advocacy, ADA guidelines and stress the need for them to take responsibility for asking questions and making inquiries.
• Encourage and assist employers in identifying successful employees with disabilities in their companies. Include them in training videos and special events on campus. One avenue might be the alumni network.
• Ask employers to participate in training sessions for students with disabilities about "the real world of work". What are employers looking for? What can we do on campus to prepare students? Although employers are assisting with providing the training, they also have the experience of meeting and getting to know individual students with disabilities from our campus.
• Educate employers that are only looking for "visible disabilities". Increase awareness about the range of disabilities and that prevalence of those that may not be immediately apparent.
• Add information to materials and workshops for employers that include "disability tips", especially for learning disabilities or others that are not a frequently known.

What are some ideas and best practices to secure stronger upper management support on our campuses?

• Send special invitations for administrators and upper management staff to attend events and trainings.
• Provide trainings, perhaps jointly, for other departments and offices on campus. Increase understanding of appropriate points of contact and responsibilities for both the CS and DS offices.
• Study and learn from effective practices of other diversity initiatives (i.e. for persons of color, for women) that have been institutionalized. Pursue support, which may need to include dollars, that has proved necessary and effective with other diversity groups.
• Encourage students with disabilities to be involved with various campus clubs - join these organizations, disclose their disabilities, become leaders. It is good from their personal experience, but it also makes them more visible to the campus community.
• Increase students with disabilities participating in events and programs. Again, great visibility! Use various channels of communication to reach students, include request for accommodation statements on everything.

What is the general policy on campus regarding the connection between diversity and disability?

• Overall, there is a great deal of variance between campuses. In some it is included in diversity. On some campuses it may be in the definition, but not acted upon.
• Need to use disability culture and community as a tool of inclusion and increase the understanding around it.
• Need to be sensitive to how the individual student identifies him/herself. There is also the need to prepare the students for the world they will be living in after school. Recognize the value of experiential education. Address accommodations without making disability the focus.
• Understand that the community of students with disabilities is itself a very diverse group. We need to understand this diversity and also be able to explain it to others that we are working with in other offices or from outside our campus.
• More integration needed with Multi-Cultural Office. Often very separate entities. For events, the first issue is access, but we need to move the dialogue beyond this point.
• Recognize the issues of confidentiality that may impact communication about individual students when talking with other offices and programs. Especially for students with non-visible disabilities.
• Important to clarify role of Disability Services Offices in this issue. There are already so many hat worn by this office - how to support inclusion in the diversity conversation but not take on more responsibilities and activities than already undertaking or funded to accomplish.

What advice would we give to a campus just starting in establishing collaboration between disability services, career services, and various other student services and diversity groups, what advice would we give?

• Communication is KEY!
• Work on developing students' self-esteem and self-advocacy skills. They can then become effective making requests and participating fully on campus.
• One very important issue is disclosure. Have workshops specific to this issue for students, various program staff, recruiters,Â….everyone!
• Have liaisons work between offices to increase awareness and provide necessary training.
• Do exchanges - attend each other's fairs and workshops. Share successful strategies and learn about the various issues and barriers.

Summary

• Still a strong need for advocacy...for individual students, to the campus higher administration, to other campus offices and departments.
• Some great things are happening. COSD can play a strong role in helping share those successes and the strategies that are proving effective.
• Training is still needed.
  • for students - with employers actively involved. These trainings need to provide role model employees with disabilities and address disclosure strategies.
  • for employers. To develop programs similar to those that have proved successful for other under-represented populations. These programs need to include internships and affinity groups.
  • for campuses. To share what is unique about disability culture and how to best facilitate full inclusion.