When Sam Goodin, the director of the Office of Services for Students with Disabilities, recently looked into making a video about spinal cord injuries to educate hospital employees, he offered students a pretty lucrative deal. In exchange for being in a focus group, students were offered $20 an hour and a chance to win an iPod.

"We got nobody," Goodin said. "That happens all the time."

But recently, concerns for the rights of people with disabilities spurred loud chastisement of the University for its lawsuit defending the Michigan Stadium construction against allegations that it has ignored the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.

ADA is now a household acronym in the University's already abbreviation-saturated jargon. And for the University community, it is a mixed blessing. Despite the angry backlash against administrators, the lawsuit has had a noticeably positive effect. It has raised an unprecedented amount of awareness on campus about disability concerns.

For an often-overlooked facet of diversity, awareness offers the potential spark that could help unite the University, faculty, alumni and students in making this campus a more inclusive and welcoming place for people with disabilities of all kinds.

This is a goal that transcends minimum legal requirements, since ADA guidelines requiring ramps don't assure convenient, or easily usable ramps. And providing access to education at the University doesn't stop at entering the building - class lectures and PowerPoint presentations are inaccessible to the deaf and blind.

Meeting this challenge is a task riddled with complexity. As a large, old and constantly changing campus, integrated with the city of Ann Arbor and diverse in its duties as an employer and educator, the University's role in meeting the needs of people with disabilities is multi-faceted. Likewise, there are individual and collective, as well as short-term and long-term responsibilities that the University must meet.

The bad press the University has gotten from the stadium controversy makes it seem callous towards people with disabilities. But in reality, it has some exceptional programs staffed with committed individuals who have managed a Herculean task to the best of their ability. While not always perfect, the University is able to offer a wide variety of services that meet its legal obligations and, more importantly, improve the lives of the people receiving the services.

But to reach the goal of creating an inclusive campus, that might not be enough.

All the programs in the world wouldn't turn a campus with unwelcoming people into a welcoming place. To do that will take a commitment from everyone on campus.

Defining disability

The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 defines disability as: "(A) a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more of the major life activities of such individual; (B) a record of such an impairment; or (C) being regarded as having such an impairment."

More broadly, a disability can mean one of many types of impairments, including the physical, sensory, psychiatric, cognitive and health-related. Some, like physical disabilities that require special equipment such as wheelchairs and sensory disabilities like blindness, are conspicuous. Others, like bipolar disorder, learning disabilities or health disabilities like diabetes, are usually hidden.

Sometimes faced with cultural stereotypes of inferiority, misconceptions about what it means to be a person with a disability and a lack of sensitivity, the environment for people with disabilities is frequently challenging. It is an environment that doesn't recognize that people with disabilities are people first, or is just oblivious to it.

"We are in a society that has a difficult time placing value - people value - on people with disabilities," said Jack Bernard, the chair of the University of Michigan Council for Disability Concerns, a volunteer organization comprised of University faculty, staff and students and Ann Arbor residents. "People just don't understand or are afraid or just don't know."

According to data from the 2000 U.S. Census, an estimated one in five people have a long-lasting condition or disability. However, people with disabilities are unlike many other groups facing discrimination because they don't identify collectively as a community (One exception is deaf people).