July 2024 Issue
A monthly forum to share diversity, equity, and inclusion resources.
Welcome to the next installment of Read.Watch.Listen. July is Disability Pride Month and has been observed annually since 2015, which coincided with the 25th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) being signed into law in July 1990. Although many forms of disability exist, the resources included in this issue focus on physical disabilities. Past RWL issues provided resources to support neurodiversity in engineering and to support the mental health of employees.
To gain perspective of the everyday struggles disabled folks live with, we invite you to watch this video titled Social Model Animation. This short video imagines a world where physically disabled people run society and everything has been designed with wheelchair users in mind, ignoring the physical aspects of abled-bodied people.
Read.Watch.Listen is a monthly forum hosted by the NCSEA SE3 Committee to share and promote conversations on diversity, equity and inclusion within the structural engineering profession. Each month, we will curate a series of articles, audio-visual and digital media to facilitate self-education in matters that affect our professional practice as structural engineers. Whether you choose to read, watch, or listen (or all three!), we hope you will join us in this important conversation. Missed the previous issue? Check out the NCSEA SE3 Committee News and Publication page.
Share your thoughts and/or recommended resources for the next issue at ncsea@ncsea.com.
Celebrating Disability Pride Month - What’s Your Role? - Forbes
Keely Cat-Wells writes about the ways Disability Pride Month can be celebrated in this article. She advocates for going beyond surface-level awareness - understand the impacts representation, laws, and allies have on disabled people. Included are practical ways you can participate in making a better reality for disabled people and ways to educate yourself on the issues they face.
Originally published June 28, 2023; Estimated Read Time - 10 min
How the ADA Changed the Built World - Netflix
In this video, directors Nicole Newnham and James Lebrecht discuss their 2020 Netflix documentary Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution. The film addresses the lives of the disabled community within the built world and the daily obstacles they face. Since the passing of the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990, significant improvements have been made to make day-to-day tasks more accessible, but the directors voice there is still a long way to go. A concept that is becoming more prominent in the AEC industry is universal design which focuses on inclusivity from the initial stages of design so that later adaptations are not needed. Learn more about universal design here.
Originally aired July 25, 2020; 00:11:55
Disability Advocate Rebekah Taussig on Built Environment Barriers You Might Not See - American Planning Association
Rebekah Taussig is a disability advocate who has used a wheelchair since she was six years old. In this podcast episode, Rebekah explains the power of storytelling, discusses ways to dismantle ableism, and shares advice for individuals working on the built environment. Check out this interview, and then if you are interested in learning more from Rebekah, consider reading her book, Sitting Pretty: The View from My Ordinary Resilient Disabled Body.
Originally posted April 2023; 00:26:30
This article was originally published in the July 2024 issue of NCSEA's Structural Connection newsletter. For more information, check out NCSEA's DEI Resources.
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