Disability Access and Advising (D2A2) is pleased to announce that October is National Disability Employment Awareness month!
Even with a college degree, persons with disabilities tend to be underrepresented in employment and are employed at levels below their degree attainment. (Institute of Education Sciences; National Center for Education Statistics, 2017).
To help bring attention to this underrepresentation and reduce this inequity, D2A2 will participate annually in the October National Disability Awareness Month. Every month, the office updates its career and internship information and lets relevant students know about opportunities for careers and internships.
D2A2 is partnering with the Career and Professional Development Center, the Federal Workforce Recruitment Program, and agencies and firms, such as Autism2Work, Bender Consulting, and Enterprise. These offices, agencies, and businesses seek to diversify their workforce by intentionally hiring qualified persons with disabilities. D2A2 publicizes internships at BroadFutures, the American Association of People with Disabilities, Disability:IN, and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. If you are interested, please check out these relevant opportunities.
People with disabilities can do amazing things! At IUP, we have students, faculty, and staff with disabilities who achieve greatness. And, we have sent out students with disabilities to work in all industries with great success. But there is still a need for improvement.
One way to increase awareness is to see persons with disabilities represented in the work setting. To that end, D2A2 delivered and hung posters on hallway bulletin boards across campus. If you are interested in helping to spread the word, you can check out a variety of signs that share the stories of several people with acquired disabilities and past injuries, as well as employers taking part in the campaign.
Every month should be one of employing more persons with disabilities. We thank you for your assistance in expanding awareness. For more information, visit the What Can You Do Campaign website.