Panelists will explore the issues of law, perception and experience regarding the Americans with Disabilities Act tonight.
"The Americans with Disabilities Act 20 Years Later: Progress and Existing Challenges" will be presented at 7:30 p.m. in the L.A. Pittenger Student Center Cardinal Hall by Freshman Connections. It builds on the issues presented by Mark Zupan in his autobiography "GIMP: When Life Deals You a Crappy Hand, You Can Fold — or You Can Play." Zupan's book was this year's freshman reader.
The speakers for the panel are lawyer and former Ball State trustee Greg Fehribach; Carlos Taylor, adaptive computer technology specialist; and associate professor of English Joyce Huff.
Melinda Messineo, associate professor of sociology, said the three are important because of their connections to the university.
"All of them have strong links to Ball State, so they are just great resources — a wealth of information," she said.
Messineo stressed the importance of student attendance for this event.
"It's just a great extension to their knowledge," she said. "They will learn a lot more about the Americans with Disabilities Act, and they can think about how it applied to Mark's life."
Accessibility on Ball State's campus remains an issue, Messineo said, recounting a minor incident earlier in the week with Ball State's quad rugby team.
"We were trying to help the quad rugby team to the gymnasium and we found out there was no handicap-accessible way out of their parking lot to the gym without going all the way down the street using a curb cut and coming all the way back," she said.
Messineo said what she took out of this and other experiences is what she hopes other Ball State students will take from the panel.
"This whole experience has really taught me to look at my environment very differently," she said. "There are lots more activities planned, lots more for us to learn and lots more for us to explore so we can continue to learn from his experience. The conversation didn't end when Mark Zupan left campus."
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