Hybrid disability rights meeting

There was a Fantastic hybrid meeting today for the Accessibility Club of Penn State Harrisburg! We had the pleasure of connecting with CUNY Unlimited FEG, welcoming both virtual and in-person guests including Professor Sue Carpenter, Professor Jeremy Sawyer and Dr.Ingrid Geier of the Fulbright Scholar-in-Residence Program (representing CUNY Kingsborough Community College). We also had great representation from Career Studies at Penn State Harrisburg and SDR, all coming together to discuss vital topics around college accessibility for all students. We were also excited to have members of Crip Video Productions in attendance! This follows up on Margot's (from Crip Video Productions) participation in a panel on disability experience at Penn State Harrisburg on March 20th, 2024, which included a screening of "A Stroke Of Endurance." It's wonderful to see the continued connection and plans to screen these films for college students in the U.S and Austria! This collaboration also highlights the important international discussions happening, like those Margot had with the Inclusion in Higher Education Advocacy Group (IHE UK) during the pandemic, shedding light on disability terms and the challenges faced by disabled actors and students in both the UK and the U.S. Thank you to everyone who contributed to today's valuable discussion! These images are posted with permission.

Disability Studies and Eugenics

On March 24 2025, I spoke to another class of students online who are learning to be elementary school teachers. The students asked about IEPs, my (Margot’s) academic challenges and successes and “A Stroke Of Endurance”. One student told me she had a disabled son and we talked about services that help disabled people get their needs met. One student shared she had a nephew with Cerebral Palsy. To my surprise one student asked about how DEI policy affects disabled people and I explained that disability rights began long before DEI was ever a term. One student asked how I felt about the high abortion rate for babies with Down syndrome which I think is ableist, and this led to a discussion of the history of eugenics and racism, and how these things/policies are rooted in ableism. This discussion was the first presentation I have ever given where these harder topics were addressed and I am forever grateful for the honesty of these students. One student asked where the original idea for “A Stroke Of Endurance” came from and I spoke about how it was a true story and how it was my reply to some movies that I felt were ableist stereotypes of disabled people wanting to die rather than live disabled. Super special thanks to the professor and the class for inviting me!

Cerebral Palsy Awareness Month 2025

https://youtu.be/4VE3EgBQ0DU March is Cerebral Palsy awareness month. This video was originally created in 2021 for a class Dylan Rothbein who is a producer at Crip Video Productions, developed specifically to help parents of disabled children and people pursuing the field of special education to understand the developmental and neurological effects of Cerebral Palsy featuring filmmaker Margot Cole who is the founder and director of Crip Video Productions. If you would like to take one of Dylan Rothbein's classes see here https://dylanrothbein.weebly.com/classes.html To learn more about Cerebral Palsy see here https://cripvideoproductions.com/about.php