Ana A. Kohout ’21, Lake Forest, Illinois

Majors: Education & Youth Studies; Disability Studies

I will present on how A Place For Us, a national student led organization that is still a work in progress, aims to unify disability rights activists in colleges across the country. We empower self-advocates with disabilities in high school, educate the broader community on disability justice, and develop plans to close the gap between academia and activism. The founders of the organization are all undergraduates in colleges or universities across the nation with various disabilities who seek to create a space where they can share their experiences, knowledge, and support for disability justice with high school and college-aged, optimistic disability activists like themselves.

A Place For Us will address the fact that only eleven percent of people with disabilities are enrolled in undergraduate colleges and of those only five percent graduate college. Many students with disabilities do not know their rights or how to advocate for them because disability activism is barely visible in higher education. Too often, people with disabilities are made to feel like there is no place for them in higher education. A Place For Us wants to create that space of belonging, learning, and activism.