"From Where I Sit" is a powerful video series featuring eight CSU students with disabilities who share their experiences in the college classroom. They tell their stories by answering five questions:
We are indebted to these students of the CSU for telling their stories and helping our culture change to one of more inclusion. See below for more information about this project. Each story is approximately 6 minutes in length and is Closed Captioned.
Each video represents one story and one person's experience. Even though two people may have the same category of disability, yet the impact and the experience of that disability may be very different, and consequently the needs will be different as well. This does not mean, however, that you won't see commonalities of needs and experience expressed by these students. Indeed, these students make many similar points, which suggest that some of the needs articulated may not be just specific to that student with that particular disability, but may be applicable to others with different disabilities and may even be appropriate to all students.
The common suggestions articulated by students in these videos point to instructional practices that may be helpful to all students. Universal design–mirroring the universal design movement in architecture and product development–is an approach to the design of products and services to be usable to the greatest number of people regardless of ability, age, or situation. Universal design in instruction addresses the need to create flexible goals, methods, materials, and assessments that accommodate learner differences. As we incorporate universally designed instructional practices, we help all students succeed while transparently providing the required accommodation for students with disabilities. For more information about universal design in learning, visit the CAST web site. For resources at the CSU, contact the EnACT program.
There are many more stories which should be told and need to be told. We hope that this video series will inspire campuses to capture the stories of their own students and use the storytelling format to begin conversations that could potentially transform attitudes and behaviors.
Mary Cheng, Executive Producer
Jean Wells, Producer/Director/Editor
Kira Carillo-Corser, Art Direction
Transcribers: Daminna Standfield, Vidya Karthigeyan, Erin Leong
Production Assistance: Glenn Brewster, CSU East Bay
Voice Over: Jennifer Wicks
CSU East Bay Faculty & Staff Advisors, Roger Parker, Sonjia Redmond, Hank Reichman, Donna Wiley, Don Gailey, Alan Monat, Laurie Isenberg, Jennifer Eagan
CSU Monterey Bay Faculty: John Berteaux, Carolina Srna, George Station
Extras: Kent Lee, Keith Sell, Lora Lowman, Anna Muaswes, and students of Project Impact, CSUEB Soccer Team, Melinda Manzo, Novella Butler, Troy Lee, Janet Brockman, Kamau McTiller Ortiz, Phil Cotty, Andrew Aranda
Sincere Appreciation to
CSU East Bay Student Disability Resource Center
Media and Technology Services
CSU Monterey Bay, Center for Academic Technology
Our Gratitude to the Storytellers
Lana Lee
Tiago Jamal Robinson
Gloria Brown
Gregoire Youbara
Kellie White-Conde
Yvette Malamud Ozer
LaDonna McTiller
Gloria Lau
© 2009 California State University
Concept and design by the Center for Distributed Learning
