Disability is inevitable. I use mine to foster better understanding | Opinion

For a long time, my disability was like my annoying little cousin. I was born with severe hearing loss, and have worn hearing aids since I was four months old. I’ve had to take my disability everywhere with me, and for a long time it was something that I just had to take care of in order to succeed at school. I felt neutral about my disability, never thinking much about whether it impacted my life at all. So it sat, dormant and small, for years.

Then I got to Davidson. My junior year, I took a class called “Disability in Literature and Art,” and I really understood disability for the first time. I was enthralled with the idea of disability as an intellectual and academic force, something that, when applied to art and literature, radically changed the shape and color of the work. What happens to our idea of beauty when we think of Venus de Milo not as just an armless statue, but as a double amputee as depicted by Rene Magritte’s Les Menottes de Cuivre? When we emphasize that King Richard III in the titular Shakespeare play had scoliosis, how does that change our interpretations of the character’s perception of himself and his motivations? I wrote my senior thesis using this method on two of Davidson’s public art sculptures that depict human figures: what happens to the perception of these sculpture’s presence on campus when we label these figures as explicitly “disabled?”

This class made me then reflect on my own life, and I realized how my disability has impacted the way I socialized, my thought processes and my core values. I remembered my frustrations in high school during rapid-fire conversations with friends, how I had to take extra time to process what they said. By the time I could formulate a characteristically “me” response, the conversation had already moved on. It’s like being in another country and only knowing basic words in the native language; your vocabulary is proficient enough where you can say basic things and ask necessary questions, but not broad enough to express the depth of your personality and who you really are.

I thought about my thought process, how I can entertain myself for hours and create full, crystal clear worlds in my head because I can take my hearing aids out and quite literally mute everything else around me and only focus on my inner monologue. The life I had lived thus far was rolling out in front of me, unmistakably and undeniably submerged in disability. After taking this class, I felt more three-dimensional than ever .

I quickly realized that my disability was the thing that led me to Davidson. My disability created the conditions to foster my curiosity, my discipline and my desire to connect with others through intentional and thoughtful interactions, which is exactly the kind of culture that Davidson seeks to foster.

I wanted other disabled students to experience this kind of epiphany about their own disabilities, so I dedicated my time to disability advocacy for the remainder of my Davidson career. Davidson saw the work I was doing and decided to create a fellowship that institutionalized this disability advocacy work.

In my role, I’m able to create events and initiatives that educate and bring disabled and non-disabled people together to encourage an understanding of disability that goes beyond pain, suffering and challenge. I have the freedom to create a history of disability at Davidson that is not about curing a disease or eliminating a disability but is a purposeful celebration and acknowledgment of the lives, contributions and legacies of Davidson’s disabled community members.

Everyone will become a part of the disability community eventually.

With my work at Davidson, I want to ensure that phrase does not instill fear or anxiety in people, but confidence and reassurance so they can navigate and better understand the experience when their time comes.

Now, I view my disability as a companion in my life, walking side by side with me everywhere I go. A phrase runs through my head all the time now: “Disabled people deserve to be more than space and time.”

They deserve to be more than a body in an accommodations office or a name hidden in a medical form. Their disabilities should be an essential ingredient to making their lives three-dimensional, and full, and interesting, not just a body waiting for medical care.

At Davidson, I get to make disability be something more than space and time.

This story was originally published April 20, 2025 at 5:00 AM.