Graduate Students with Disabilities

PROFILE PICTURE HISTORY: The "UMD accessibility terp" was created by Samuel diBella in 2023 to represent the UMD disability community, which includes graduate students, undergrads, faculty, staff, and neighbors. We distribute stickers and pins with this logo to raise awareness of UMD accessibility resources and foster connection and support among those with disabled identities.

PROFILE PICTURE ALT TEXT: The "UMD accessibility terp" is inspired by and features the colors of the disability pride flag, created by Ann Magill in 2021. It features a green and yellow turtle on a black background, holding a heart with red, gold, white, blue, and green stripes. The parallel lines represent interdependence and cross-disability solidarity. Red represents physical disabilities, gold is cognitive and intellectual disabilities, white is nonvisible and undiagnosed disabilities, blue is psychiatric disabilities, and green is sensory disabilities. The black background mourns disabled people who have died due to negligence, suicide, rebellion, illness, and eugenics. (Source: RespectAbility.) The "terp" is also encircled by the URL for the UMD accessibility website, accessibility.umd.edu. 

GWD BRIEF HISTORY: We formed in early 2023 when our founder returned from a leave of absence and reached out to ADS to connect with other grad assistants. We changed our name from UMD Grad Assistants with Disabilities to UMD GWD (Graduate Students with disabilities) since we realized there was nowhere for graduate students without assistantships to join. This group is intended to be a private, confidential, accessible, and safe space for graduate students to chat and get to know each other, without ableist norms or expectations. regularly collaborate with other student orgs like QWD and DICE, as well as the Disability Cultural Center, and the Student Affairs affinity group for disabled employees, and occasionally collaborate with individuals at other MD/USM institutions. To join our Whatsapp conversations, please reach out to our president and/or advisor. You can also find resources here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OJhwPMLKpAJx5qmtc8apeMCpkqYn8e00EfFtCIQlTQ4/edit and some of our advocacy priorities here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tu8TNiwEnbgKAnlnxjYEbBXL39cg225WxkKdLNVMYqU/edit