Honorary doctorate awarded to athlete and self advocate, Karen Gaffney

from Central Washington University:
On May 5, 36-year-old, Karen Gaffney will receive an honorary doctorate from Oregon's University of Portland. University officials believe she may be the first person with Down syndrome to receive such a degree.

Karen Gaffney

Famed distance swimmer and Down syndrome activist Karen Gaffney has spent her life showing the world that commitment, determination, and vision are the hallmarks of a well-lived life, not believing false limits imposed by other people’s expectations.

Renowned for her extraordinary exploits as a swimmer (she has swum the English Channel with teammates, swam nine miles across Lake Tahoe, and swam across Lake Champlain and San Francisco Bay, among many other feats), she is also a remarkably eloquent speaker and activist for people with developmental disabilities, and president of the Karen Gaffney Foundation in Portland.

Will Becky Jackson from Glee attend College?

from Disability Scoop by Michelle Diament:
When students on Fox’s “Glee” graduated this season, many considered college. Now a Twitter campaign is calling on the show’s writers to make the same plan for a character with Down syndrome.
Using the hashtag #College4Becky, a social media push launching this week is encouraging the “Glee” writers to send Becky Jackson to college at the end of the show’s next season. Though the character is believed to be a rising high school senior, little has been said about her future...
“We want to plant a seed,” said Meg Grigal, the co-director of the group behind the campaign. “College is a real option for people with intellectual disabilities.”
Lauren Potter, 22, the actress with Down syndrome who plays Becky Jackson on “Glee,” attends Irvine Valley College in Irvine, Calif. in real life.
“I know she will love the idea (of Becky going to college) because she loves the idea that she is in college,” Potter’s mother, Robin Sinkhorn, told Disability Scoop, adding that she had not yet had an opportunity to discuss the campaign with her daughter who was traveling Monday. “It would be a great storyline.”
Potter’s character has long been a fan favorite in the disability community and the actress has not shied away from taking a stand. She’s used her platform as a “Glee” cast member to raise awareness about bullying of people with disabilities among other issues and currently serves as a member of the President’s Committee for People with Intellectual Disabilities.
Officials at Fox did not respond to a request for comment about the Twitter campaign.

the open letter from Think College:
Dear Glee writers,
We think Becky Jackson is fabulous. And we'd like to ask you to send her to college.
More and more colleges across the U.S. are enrolling people with intellectual disabilities, just like Becky. Vanderbilt, Virginia Commonwealth University, and Highline Community College in Washington are just a few examples. All of Becky's friends on the show are heading off to college next year. That's something she can do too--but we haven't yet heard what her plans are after graduation.
Your show has made a huge impact on young people. Lesbian and gay teens have been inspired by Kurt Hummel to stand up to bullying. Glee is inclusive in a playful, non-preachy way. That includes Becky--both the way you write her, and how she's played by Lauren Potter.
If you make college plans for Becky, you'll be raising the expectations of all your viewers with Down syndrome and other intellectual disabilities. You'll be helping them dream big, and know what options are out there after high school. We think that would be brilliant.
And if Sue Sylvester's baby does have a disability, she'll have a tremendous role model in Becky as she heads off to college.
Thanks for considering this idea! And thanks for all you do as writers on Glee.
With appreciation,
Meg Grigal, Ph.D.
Co-Director, Think College
Institute for Community Inclusion
University of Massachusetts Boston
meg.grigal@umb.edu

from Down Syndrome in the Arts and Media:
This is an excellent idea and could be in the works at GLEE since Becky has at least one more year of HS. But did anyone pick up the phone like a grown-up and talk to the producers first? Is the DS community becomming the bullies launching this sort of cyber campaign? There are many of us in Hollywood who advocate for many different causes. We work with producers and call on these tactics as a last resort. The next time someone has an idea and wants to talk to producers give me a call. We can set up a phone call or a meeting. I hope you don't estrange your cause because of the manner in which you took it on.

Student wtih Down syndrome's attempt to attend art class

From therepublic.com:

When Chapman University filmmaking student Ruby Stocking graduated from Ashland High School in 2008, she had never met Eliza Schaaf, a classmate with Down syndrome.

Three years later, Schaaf's battle to attend a ceramics course at Ashland's Southern Oregon University became the topic of a documentary by Stocking and three other students at Chapman in Orange, Calif.

"Originally, going into the project we were hoping to make a film about SOU and its impact on Eliza having been withdrawn from the ceramics course," Stocking said. "We just realized there was a greater story within the SOU clash with Eliza, that story being inclusion and whether or not someone who is disabled should be included in society or whether they should be separated."

The documentary has been nominated for the university's Dodge College of Film and Media Arts Cecil Award for Best Documentary. It also will be entered into at least five film festivals.

Last fall, Schaaf enrolled in a college-level ceramics class as a non-admitted student at SOU. Non-admitted students may enroll in up to eight credits of classes but don't earn credit toward a degree. Midway through, the SOU administration decided to drop Schaaf from the class.

The university said Schaaf required excessive supervision and one-on-one attention that limited the instructor's ability to interact with the rest of the class. Schaaf's classmates signed a petition stating that Schaaf did not interfere with their ability to learn and asking that she be reinstated.

Schaaf's family has appealed the decision to the Oregon University System, which so far has upheld it.

Stocking heard about the story from a friend on Facebook around the time when she and classmates Bobby Moser, James Parker and Virginia Thomasi were looking for a topic on which to make a documentary for their Chapman class called Community Voices.

The documentary project was expected to highlight a social justice issue for an Orange County organization. The Dhont Family Foundation funds the student-made documentaries each year.

When the group contacted the Down Syndrome Association of Orange County, it learned the association already knew Schaaf's story, as it had gone viral among the Down syndrome community.

For eight days in February and March, the four students filmed Schaaf working out at the Ashland Family YMCA, volunteering at the Ashland Emergency Food Bank and doing other daily activities. They also collected home videos of Schaaf and interviewed her, her family and classmates.

"I thought the documentary would be a collection of activities and all the things Eliza can do and that it would downplay the SOU issue," said Deb Evans, Schaaf's mother. "They wove the story about her experience at SOU into a look at her life through her family and through who she is.

"They presented Eliza's story in a way that opens a dialogue," Evans said. "I think they've done that brilliantly."

From kindergarten until Nov. 8 when SOU dropped her from the ceramics class, Schaaf had been included in general education classes with her typically developed peers, Evans said. She earned a modified diploma from AHS last June and wanted to join her classmates in the next step, college, where she wanted to study art and photography.

Stocking said she and her classmates traveled to Oregon three times for the filming. The time they spent together sealed a close friendship between Schaaf and Stocking, the filmmaker said.

Stocking said she thinks SOU's decision to withdraw Schaaf was wrong, but she acknowledges some people might disagree.

"I never thought about inclusion within the disabled population," Stocking said. "It caused me to examine myself and to examine others."

The crew did not include SOU's perspective in the documentary, because they were denied an interview.

Jim Beaver, a SOU spokesman, said he had not seen the documentary and could not comment on it.

"We were approached by some people who wanted to make a documentary," Beaver said. "They asked to speak to the president and gave us some tentative dates, but she was not available. Even if she had been available, she couldn't have said anything" because of federal law that prohibits disclosing information about students without their permission, he said.