What is a Disability?

At the club meeting, we learned about and discussed the topic of disability. This meeting served as an introduction for students to begin or continue their journey to disability allyship.

Mental Health Workshop

At the club meeting, we discussed mental health, had an open sharing, and wrapped up with a guided meditation.

Winter Break Book Club

Over the winter break, we read and discussed the book Strangers Assume My Girlfriend is My Nurse by Shane Burcaw. Shane is an author with a physical disability called spinal muscular atrophy.

Movie Night

We virtually watched the powerful Oscar-nominated documentary Crip Camp together through Netflix Party. The film focuses on campers from Camp Jened who turned themselves into activists for the disability rights movement and follows their fight for accessibility legislation.

Guest Speaker: Shane Burcaw

Shane Burcaw is the author of several award-winning books about disability and the co-founder of the YouTube channel Squirmy and Grubs, which has generated over 150M views. He is the President of a nonprofit organization called Laughing At My Nightmare and a renowned public speaker who has performed across the country.

Shane had an MBA exclusive Q&A session to answer questions about his life and disability-related topics.

Guest Speaker: Dr. Steven Noll

Dr. Noll is the UF Disability Resource Center’s faculty fellow. He is a Master Lecturer in the Department of History at UF. His research interests include both disability history and Florida history, where he examines both race and the environment.

At this event, Dr. Noll discussed ableism and the intersectionality between disability and race.

Guest Speaker: Carden Wyckoff

Carden spoke about her story of living with muscular dystrophy and how it’s transformed her into a disability advocate. Her focus has been on the social model of disability, where she seeks to empower others to recognize barriers and work to remove them to create an inclusive world. In her talk, she also spoke about the importance of disability inclusion and people-first / identity-first language.

Carden Wyckoff is an Atlanta native, disability advocate, wheelchair roller, change maker, and adventure seeker. She is known for bringing strategy to organizations, and she does this most frequently by being able to come up with innovative ideas, which leads to creating efficiencies. She currently serves on the Board of Directors for the FSHD Society and works in the city of Atlanta for a Fortune 500 company.

“Should I Say That?”: Disability and Language

At this club meeting, we discussed common language that can be offensive to those with disabilities and their allies and how to avoid it.

The Last Frontier: Incorporating Disability Into D&I

Disabled people represent the world’s largest minority group, one that has been traditionally underrepresented in the global workforce. In this session, the Gator MBAbility Club sought to better understand the disability community and learn new strategies for building a disability-inclusive workplace at all levels of an organization.

Guest Speaker: Dr. Josh Loebner, Senior Director of Inclusion & Diversity, Designsensory

Professional marketers should be strategic — and inclusive — thinkers. At the Gator MBAbility Club’s first meeting of Mod 3, we were joined by Dr. Josh Loebner, Senior Director of Inclusion and Accessibility at Designsensory. Dr. Loebner shared key insights about building inclusive marketing campaigns that ensure advertising better reflects society’s diversity.

Movie + Pizza Night: CODA

The Gator MBAbility Club celebrated 2022’s historic Academy Awards with a showing of CODA, the year’s Best Picture. We enjoyed Gainesville’s best pizza and used the film to kick-start a discussion around the themes of independence, self-efficacy, and the responsibilities associated with providing support to (or receiving support from) our family members, including those with disabilities.