This year, 2023, we celebrate the 33rd anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act. We recognize this groundbreaking civil rights legislation by featuring UO faculty member, Dr. Elizabeth, and her work and encourage graduate students to know their rights and seek accommodations.  

Elizabeth (Betsy) Wheeler is an Associate Professor; she teaches and researches disability in literature and in public, popular, and political culture, with a focus on intersections with race, class, and gender. In 2017, she founded the University of Oregon’s Disability Studies Minor, housed in the English Department where she has served as a professor since 1996.

She hopes to create social impact through her research which influences the respectful and well-informed education, parenting, and medical treatment of children with disabilities. Additionally, she inspires to help both the general public and scholars recognize the politics of ableism, the wider historical context, and the profundity of disability experiences in what might seem to some like mere entertainment genres, such as comics, children’s literature, and fantasy fiction. She seeks to build a a disability community on and off campus.  

Her aim is to feed students’ intellectual curiosity about the arts and humanities and help them claim their own agency and skills in making the world a more inclusive place. She would like disabled students to find community and learn more about their culture and history. Furthermore, she would also like students who are allies to achieve cultural competence in interacting with disability communities.

She would like her work to help make the world a more inclusive place for people with disabilities, spread love of literature and culture, and spark lifelong learning in students.    

Elizabeth finds her inspiration in her children, her students, her queer/disability communities, and the members of the Society for Disability Studies. She pledges future upcoming students is to find each other, don’t be shy about asserting your needs for consideration and accommodations, and help your department develop its own disability policies for GEs and graduate students if it doesn’t have them already. She says “You will face barriers other students don’t. Please be persistent. We need you here.”  

Betsy’s message to all university staff and student population “When you plan events, make sure they are fully accessible - ASAN Accessible Event Planning Guide”. The EMU AccessAbility Student Union is a mighty force. It is all undergraduates, but she thinks graduate students could find powerful community through it. This fall, a new affinity group is starting for faculty, staff, and students with disabilities. For those of you who are interested, please contact Elizabeth (Betsy) Wheeler if you’d like to get involved.

Note:  

It takes a long time to get an appointment with AEC and get your accommodations set up, so start early.  

Allies: Notice who’s in the room, who’s not, and why. 

- Story by Aqsa Khan, Division of Graduate Studies.