Program helps disabled Elis

Yale’s Resource Office on Disabilities has announced a new peer mentoring focus to be added to its disabilities services in fall 2009, raising questions as to whether Princeton’s own program should be more aggressive in helping disabled students.

Yale will formally link incoming students with disabilities to older students with disabilities, though the Yale Office of Freshman Affairs remains unsure exactly how it will pair freshmen and older peer mentors.

“A program like Yale’s would be a step in the right direction for Princeton. In all honesty, at Princeton, you have to be very proactive as a disabled student in order to get help,” said Fernando Sanchez ’10, who has a physical disability. Sanchez is also a layout staffer for The Daily Princetonian.

Princeton has an informal peer mentoring system for students with disabilities, similar to other universities such as Harvard, where students can sign up and request to have a mentor. Yale’s mentoring system will make it the first Ivy to formally link disabled students.

“You have to go to them,” Sanchez said about the University’s disability services.

Sanchez explained the positive impact of his experiences with the informal mentoring opportunities available at the University.

Specifically, having an RCA during freshman year who was also disabled made the college transition easier for him, such as when “she helped me find the best routes to take [around campus],” he said.

Andrew Bors ’11 has a form of muscular dystrophy, a disease that causes progressive muscle weakening and has forced him to remain in a wheelchair since eighth grade. “A program like Yale’s would probably be a good idea, but we shouldn’t fall into the trap of lumping people with disabilities together,” he said. Bors plans to be an architect. He is a little worried, however, because architecture is quite a “tough major physically,” he said.

Eve Tominey, the director of the Office of Disability Services, said in an e-mail that Princeton “provides informal networking and mentoring opportunities for students, but there has not been a need to develop a more formal process on campus at this time.” She added that “it will be interesting to see how the Yale program plays out.”

The Office of Disability Services, founded in 2006, focuses on promoting academic access and physical access for students with disabilities. At the moment, there are roughly 100 students with disabilities registered with the Office of Disability Services.

The disability mentoring at Yale will also extend to students with mental health issues and learning disabilities such as dyslexia. LGBT and international students will be eligible for inclusion in the program as well.