Spring Break
The Daily OrangeJoint degree in law, disability offered
By Daniel Rivero
Posted: 2/14/03, 2:44 AM EST Section: News
First-year law student Julie Morse will join Smith in the program because she too is attracted to the interdisciplinary benefits.
“After I took an intro to disability studies class my senior year in college, I decided I wanted to combine working with people with disabilities and law,” Morse said. “I worked as a case manager with children and I looked for programs in the U.S. that would allow me to do both a masters in disability and a degree in law.”
The program’s launch, Taylor believes, is a recognition of the need for interdisciplinary collaboration in educating about contemporary problems. The two schools began noticing that students from their own programs were taking elective courses in the other’s.
“My work happens to be in sociology not law, so I’m concerned about how to change public attitudes,” Taylor said. “Take racial integration, for example. Even though we passed laws to end segregation in 1955, we’re still not an integrated society and the same goes for people with disability.”
Only recently did people with disabilities gain rights but the societal change is very slow, Taylor added.
“We need initiatives from legal rights and we need efforts to change from the way society and community see people with disabilities. This program is to prepare the student to confront the various barriers.”
Taylor believes that such dual programs enhance the scholarship of a university.
“It’s personally the natural tendency for faculty to work within their own school. Generally, what SU is trying to do and encourage is interdisciplinary cooperation.”
SU also began the first graduate disability studies program in the country in 1995.
“After I took an intro to disability studies class my senior year in college, I decided I wanted to combine working with people with disabilities and law,” Morse said. “I worked as a case manager with children and I looked for programs in the U.S. that would allow me to do both a masters in disability and a degree in law.”
The program’s launch, Taylor believes, is a recognition of the need for interdisciplinary collaboration in educating about contemporary problems. The two schools began noticing that students from their own programs were taking elective courses in the other’s.
“My work happens to be in sociology not law, so I’m concerned about how to change public attitudes,” Taylor said. “Take racial integration, for example. Even though we passed laws to end segregation in 1955, we’re still not an integrated society and the same goes for people with disability.”
Only recently did people with disabilities gain rights but the societal change is very slow, Taylor added.
“We need initiatives from legal rights and we need efforts to change from the way society and community see people with disabilities. This program is to prepare the student to confront the various barriers.”
Taylor believes that such dual programs enhance the scholarship of a university.
“It’s personally the natural tendency for faculty to work within their own school. Generally, what SU is trying to do and encourage is interdisciplinary cooperation.”
SU also began the first graduate disability studies program in the country in 1995.
