Inclusive Spaces, Inclusive Policies: Disability and the Design of Everyday Life

Design is commonly thought of as a field that determines the look and feel of products or environments: the shape of your eyeglasses, the flow of a building, or the pattern of city streets. But services and policies are also designed: they are the product of human deliberation and decision-making. Join the Fellows & Education Policy programs at New America for two discussions that look at disability in the design of everyday life, in multiple contexts.

Designing Inclusive Spaces: 

How does the built environment hold and influence cultural values? What sort of platform would allow for someone in a wheelchair to enhance their dancing? How does one design a university tailored to deafness? Focusing on the design of physical objects and environments as they intersect with policy in public life, this conversation explores both ideas and concrete examples of social imagination in design. 

Designing Inclusive Policies: 

There are numerous complex challenges that come with creating quality school environments for all children. How are notions of ability and capacity used to frame the academic and behavioral performance of students with disabilities and students of color, and students who are both? What are the horizons for best practices in designing future equitable education policies? 

Agenda 

11:00 am - 12:30 pm: Designing Inclusive Spaces 

Participants: 

Alice Sheppard, @wheelchairdancr 
Award-winning Choreographer & Professional Dancer 

Hansel Bauman 
Chief Architect, Co-founder and Project Director, DeafSpace Institute,
Gallaudet University 

Keith Doane 
Gallaudet Class of 2014, Innovation & Entrepreneurship Program Coordinator,
Gallaudet University 

Moderator: 

Sara Hendren, @ablerism 
Class of 2018 Eric & Wendy Schmidt Fellow, New America 

12:30 - 1 pm: Lunch & Networking Break 

1:00 - 2:30 pm: Designing Inclusive Policies 

Participants: 

Rebecca Cokley, @RebeccaCokley 
Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress 

Elena Silva, @elena_m_silva 
Director of PreK-12, Education Policy, New America 

Jeremiah Islar 
Youth advocate and Administrative/Program Assistant, SchoolTalk DC 

Moderator: 

Sara Hendren, @ablerism 
Class of 2018 Eric & Wendy Schmidt Fellow, New America 

Lunch will be provided. 
The building is accessible and an ASL interpreter will be present. Please reach out with additional access needs; we are committed to building an inclusive event.

Follow the conversation online using #DisabilityandDesign and following @NewAmerica.