Gayle Rogers (Chair, Department of English, Jean Grace (Director, William S. Dietrich II Institute for Writing Excellence), and Sam Pittman (Lecturer II, Department of English) have been working together with the Dietrich School to create the new Disabilities Studies Certificate. Although the certificate is still in the works, it aims to be successful in providing an interdisciplinary set of courses that will pair well with a range of majors and/or minors.
The Disability Studies certificate’s beginnings were in January 2020. After some development and exploring ideas, the certificate was officially proposed in the fall of 2021. The team’s hard work paid off, and the following members of the Disability Working Group are recognized for helping with feedback: Sarah Hakimzadeh (formerly the Writing Institute's Postdoctoral Associate); Senior Lecturers Marylou Gramm and Ellen Smith; Lecturer 
II and Associate Director of the Institute for Writing Excellence Moriah Kirdy; Boryana Dobreva of the College of General Studies (CGS). CGS and the Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences Council approved the certificate, and it is currently awaiting approval from the Provost.
Housed in the College of General Studies, this 18-credit undergraduate certificate will consist of 20 courses to choose from, including five newly made courses specifically for the certificate. Sam Pittman looked at what other universities were doing and at Pitt’s own interests to craft a list of departments to reach out to. Students will take one introductory course and give electives across departments—with at least three different subject codes. The range of subject codes allows students to gain a diverse understanding when completing this interdisciplinary certificate. Pittman stated that “the overall goal of the certificate is not looking at disabilities as a medical condition or as a deficit, but to talk about disability as a personal and social experience and to center the lives and experiences [of people who have disabilities]."
Senior Lecturer Ellen Smith explains the evolution of the Seminar in Composition: Disabilities Studies course that she designed. With the Composition program's permission, she first taught sections of Seminar in Composition: Diversity in a way that focused on teaching the disabilities aspect of diversity. She recalled, "My students were always aking, ‘Why don't we know about this? Why haven't we learned about this? Why haven't we learned about what led up to the Americans with Disability Act? Why, haven't we learned about ableism in language?’ Even though students did not know when registering that we would be focusing on work by disabled authors and writing about disability issues, they seemed to sense that this area of diversity was new and compelling.” And so the course took off on that theme, where the class explored disabilities intersections with race, gender, sexuality, and socioeconomic class. The students' sense that the class touched on subjects that were important yet underrepresented in the curriculm sparked the course’s proposal.
Smith, with the help of Jean Grace and Mary Lou Graham (Director of Undergraduate Studies for Composition), proposed a freestanding Seminar in Composition: Disability Studies to the Dean’s office. And, although the new course, offered for the first time this past fall, is not part of the Disability Studies certificate, it is now a gateway for first-year students to learn about the issues and the certificate. Smith, who identifies as disabled and has long been involved in the national disability writing community, said that offering the course as a freestanding one has drawn more disabled students, which only deepens the exchange of information and perspectives in the classroom. She said that the two sections of the new course she taught this past academic year included both disabled and nondisabled students “from a variety of majors, people who are going to the health sciences, people who are going into speech and language fields, the law and the humanities."
Sam Pittman will direct the certificate when it launches. Jean Grace notes that “his work on this will be wonderful; we are lucky to have him working on this.” Through the certificate, Grace highlights that students will
explore ethical questions, analyze issues, identify barriers, and develop strategies for reducing ableism and increasing access in physical and social environments. When the certificate is launched soon, it is important that it offers new paths for all students: people who identify as disabled, nondisabled people who plan to interact with individuals with disabilities in their work, those who wish to be more informed allies, and all those who want to work in disability rights advocacy.
—Olivia Wyland
Olivia Wyland is a senior majoring in Public and Professional Writing with minors in History and Writing (Nonfiction). She is The Fifth Floor's associate editor.