ARTS & CU LTU RE
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Obstacles to overcome
STUDENTS RECEIVE TOOLS FRON THE DISABILITY RESOURCE CENTER
BY ALLIE PERKINS
STAFF WRITER
People with disabilities can have trouble
living their lives on a day-to-d ay basis.
This can be especially true when they’re a
college student.
Luckily, Clackamas Community College
can help people w ho have disabilities.
C C C ’ s Disability Resource Center offers
a variety o f support for those who have
disabilities, both visible and invisible alike.
Christina Bruck, a coordinator at the
Disability Resource Center, explained the
hardships of students who have a disorder.
“ Even a learning disability significantly
im pacts a student. I heard a beautiful
example in the autism presentation the
other day, that you ask somebody with a
processing disorder a question and they go
to the file cabinet to try and pull out those
details. They are sitting at this wall o f file
cabinets and are trying to pull out details
to put together. If you don’t patiently wait
to ask that question again, and you ask it,
they will close those file cabinets and will
have to start all over,” Bruck said.
Students’ disorders can notably impact
their schooling in multiple ways, especially
if a teacher is unaware o f a student’ s
disability.
“ It’s a process to pull off different pieces
to be able to put it all together,” Bruck
explained. Students with disabilities can
be affected significantly in their school
because with each obstacle in their path,
they have to learn in their own way to
overcome it.
M idterm s and finals are hard on any
college student, but sometimes people with
disabilities have it worse. “ Having classes,
depending on how many credits they’re
taking, that means that they have multiple
things that they have to process, especially
if it comes to midterms and finals,” Bruck
said. “ Some students may try to study and
cram and you know how hard it is to take all
those different finals when you have three
to five classes that you’re studying for.
Somebody who m ight have a processing
disorder then is categorizing and are trying
to keep all that information ih place with
all these tests that are happening, and they
are already struggling w ith getting that
information and retaining it.”
Bruck went on to explain that students
with processing disorders need extra time
to organize their thoughts so they can
Makayla Blackburn is a student support staff member at the front desk of the Disability Resource Center.
prepare themselves for the educational
hardships that school may bring.
The Associated Student Governm ent
and Multicultural Center are planning on
broadening their resources for students
w ith disabilities as w ell as creating a
welcom ing environm ent for the w hole
community.
The ASG and Multicultural Center plan
on participating in events for people with
disabilities in the future.
Felicia A rce, assistive techn ology
specialist at the Disability Resource Center,
explaind how hard it is for students who
have disabilities in school.
“ Say that someone doesn’t show up to a
m eeting,” Arce said. “ Maybe advisers are
like, ‘Oh they just forgot.’ They didn’t value
it. Where on the student’s side, they’re like,
‘No. ’ They had a lot of anxiety or something
came up, or you know, maybe they didn’t
get transportation there. There’s a lot
more. They are not trying to be rude, it was
just something that was out of their control
happened. I think that’s that mindset that
we often forget.”
Undergraduates 2011-12
w o -»
Students without Disabilities
Source: U .l department of Education, National Center for Education
Statistics. (2016). Digest of Education Statistics, 2015 (2016-014),
Chapter 3.
Clackamas Print
% of Students with Disabilities
theclackam asprint.com
Graphic by Daniel Bremer
February 13,2019