Experiences of Disability During and After Stanford

Experiences of Disability During and After Stanford

Thurs. March 11, 2021

4:00 - 5:30 pm PST

Join us on March 11th from 4:00-5:30 pm PST for a fascinating panel conversation about disability and disability activism at Stanford and beyond! Prior to the panel, you’ll have the opportunity to watch Deaf President Now, a documentary about a seminal student activist movement to secure administrative representation at Gallaudet University, America’s oldest university for Deaf and hard-of-hearing students. At the panel, you’ll have the amazing opportunity to hear from four Stanford alumni and a faculty member with different disabilities and from different eras. They will discuss their experiences with disability and their thoughts on student advocacy at Stanford. They’ll grapple with issues like having a disability during a global pandemic, how activism differs among institutions, and how the Stanford community can move forward to effectively support its students. We’ll also have an audience Q&A. Joining us are Alison Davis ‘79, Anima Shrestha ‘20, Cat Sanchez ‘19, Cathy Haas (current faculty), and Kurt Kroesche ‘89. ASL interpreting will be provided. If you need any other disability-related accommodation, please contact: disability.access@stanford.edu. Event registration link: https://stanford.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJAufuivrz4pHN3zswmp9Te3EvXR7ByFPIut

Panelist biographies:

Alison Carpenter Davis grew up in an L.A. suburb-by-the-sea just riding waves and her Schwinn—until 1971, when Crohn’s disease invaded her 14-year-old self and shook her white shutters. She quickly learned polite people didn’t talk about the often-debilitating chronic intestinal disorder. Nearly fifty years later, she co-founded the Disability at Stanford Oral History Project. A former managing editor at Outside magazine, her writing has appeared in the Chicago Tribune, The Independent, The New York Times International Edition, and Stanford Magazine. After graduating from Stanford with B.A.’s in Communications and Psychology, she married her Stanford sweetheart. She can be overly welcoming, so he calls her “the serial includer”. They live in Northern California in a house where their three kids once grew. Her book Letters Home from Stanford came out in 2017. 

Anima Shrestha graduated from Stanford in 2020 with a B.S. in Human Biology, with a concentration in Neurodevelopment and Disability. She became interested in disability at a young age through her little sister, who was born with autism and several developmental disabilities. Because of this experience, and her own mental health struggles, she decided to pursue a career as a physician. At Stanford, she was involved in several disability advocacy initiatives, including co-founding the Disability Studies Committee, planning and hosting Stanford's first disability studies conference ("Mediations: Disability, Technology, and the Arts"), and chairing the Disability Advocacy Committee to establish a community center. She also conducted research in autism genetics and on portrayals of mental illness on social media. She is currently taking a gap year while applying to medical school, during which she is working as a Data, Impact, and Learning Fellow at LifeMoves, a non-profit working to return homeless individuals in the Bay Area to stable housing. 

Cat Sanchez graduated from Stanford in 2019 with a B.A. in Human Biology. Her concentration was in Biological and Social Factors of Mental Health and her honors thesis explored the relationship between Early Life Stress and adult-onset Hoarding Disorder. She is currently a second-year PhD student in the Sociology department studying non-traditional students in higher education. Cat has had PTSD, chronic pain, and immune issues since childhood, but never perceived this part of her experience as disability despite fighting throughout her life to receive adequate accommodation. At Stanford, she first became aware of disability identity through the Intro to Disability Studies course. The sudden awareness of belonging to an entire vibrant and diverse community was life-giving. Cat is now part of a network of students, staff, and alumni advocating for the disability community on campus, including helping to push forward the pilot program for a disability community space. Her dream is for every disabled student to feel supported by a strong, intersectional campus community.

Cathy Haas has been a Lecturer in the Language Center in the School of Humanities & Sciences at Stanford since 1976. I grew up in San Francisco and I was born hearing. I became Deaf at age 2 1/2 after I had Scarlet Fever. Before coming to Stanford, I taught Deaf students in Elementary school for three years, and I taught Deaf students in High School for three years before coming to the Psychology Department at Stanford in 1974, where I worked on a research project about communicating with Koko, a gorilla, in 1974-1975. In addition to teaching at Stanford, I served on the San Mateo County Commission on Disability from about 1980 to 1990, and I was also on the Board of the Section 504 Committee in Redwood City. I was also involved in the Demonstrations for Disability Rights Rally in San Francisco in 1977. In 1995, I was a delegate representing the World Federation of the Deaf at the United Nation’s 4th World Conference on Women in Beijing, China. The World Federation of the Deaf is involved in the Defense of Disability Rights Education. I am currently the Chair of the Disability Staff Forum at Stanford and I have been on the board since 1979. I was also a supporter of the Deaf President Now movement in 1988, and I invited former Gallaudet University leader, Jerry Covell, to make a presentation at our campus for a week in 1990. I have also done some training sessions at the Stanford Medical School for helping them communicate better with Deaf and Hard of Hearing patients in medical situations. I really enjoy teaching and learning about different Sign Languages and disabilities around the world. I also enjoy doing research and helping with the Stanford Community.

Kurt Kroesche has been an educator, actor, and writer since graduating from Stanford (BA '89, MA '93).  As an undergraduate, he acted in many drama productions and competed on the men's swimming team, earning two NCAA titles. He currently teaches English and Ethics at Los Gatos High School. He likes to tell his students he's the only Stanford dropout he's ever met. Kurt left Stanford after his junior year when a latent, lifelong bout with clinical depression and OCD resurfaced and made collegiate life impossible. After two years of talk and drug therapy (he was one of the first recipients of Prozac), he returned to the Farm to complete his degree and earn a MA in Education. His experiences during his two-year college hiatus inspired him to pursue a career teaching, mentoring, and counseling young adults. He lives in Los Gatos with his wife, Kathy, and two teenage daughters, Clare and Sophie. Finally, he still considers Prozac and Zoloft close personal friends.