AMS Election: Disability Seat Referendum

Bowen Tang, a second-year student in the Faculty of Science, is currently involved in the “YES” Campaign for creating a voting seat for Students with Disabilities on the AMS Council by amending ByLaw 5.2(a). Please read his message, below, and support this cause.

UBC is made up of many different faculties and in each faculty there are always students who face unique systematic, structural and attitudinal barriers almost every day. Some of these students are us, with each of us having a different kind of disability. I, myself, am a hard of hearing person with a profound sensorineural hearing loss. In the AMS meeting on November 18th, 2009, Matthew Naylor pointed out that any concerns that we have can be brought up with our respective faculty representatives, but what does he (as an Arts Councilor) know about disability? How interested will he and other faculty representatives be in learning about and understand the academic and social challenges that we have to face every single day of our lives? As a faculty representative, he would be more committed to dealing with matters that are relevant to his own faculty. Why tend to the needs of one small voice that only makes up about 10% of the faculty population? Having a seat on the council will unify all persons with disabilities throughout UBC into one BIG entity, regardless of what faculty they are in.

Having students with disabilities united into our own group means our interests may be represented as one large voice, instead of through multiple small voices within separate academic faculties. It gives us a platform to have someone on the council that can actually relate to the challenges we have to overcome every single day of our lives.

Now you may ask, how would I understand what a visually impaired person need? And so I ask you this: in the Faculty of Arts, would the people in the Political Science department understand the issues faced by the Philosophy department? People with disabilities are not homogeneous group, but we all have a common cause. Moreover, despite the differences in the types of disabilities we have, we face the same challenges: discrimination, isolation, stigma, and so forth, and this is where education of public comes in.

Having a seat on the council will expose the issues faced by students with disabilities to the entire student body of UBC and give them the opportunity to realize that disability is “More Than You Think”. Lastly, with regards to a question posed about how involved will we actually be if we get a seat: do not assume something that you don’t know, because we care enough to make a difference.

Regards,

Bowen Tang

Please support this referendum and vote YES online between January 25th to 29th at www.ams.ubc.ca/elections AND join the facebook group: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=260886027809.

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