Week-long event lets students live through new lens

[TSteven]

(Pi Kappa Phi - The University of Kentucky)

Week-long event lets students live through new lens
By Ashley Graves
Published: Monday, April 18, 2005
Kernel Press

This week - "No Boundaries Week" - UK students can learn firsthand what some disabilities can feel like by taking part in simulations.

The brothers of Pi Kappa Phi and Push America, their national philanthropy project, work daily with people with disabilities.

No Boundaries Week, one of the events sponsored by Pi Kappa Phi, is a three-day event starting tomorrow that focuses on issues concerning people with disabilities in an effort to raise awareness in the student body.

"Many people are uneducated about people with disabilities and their way of life," said Andrew Schuette, No Boundaries Week coordinator and Pi Kappa Phi member. "Taking part in the activities will bring a greater understanding and awareness while letting students experience first hand what it is like living with a disability."

During the three-day event, speakers will relate their personal stories and activities are scheduled to simulate disabilities to students.

Johnnie Tuitel is a motivational speaker with cerebral palsy coming to campus, sponsored by the Student Activities Board - an event that coincides with No Boundaries Week.

"SAB is very excited to be able to program with Pi Kappa Phi," said Megan Powell, director of quality control for SAB. "Johnnie Tuitel will help bring awareness to the needs of disabled people - especially on UK's campus - and help promote acceptance."

Tuitel also founded the nonprofit organization Alternatives in Motion, a charity driven to help those in need of a wheelchair.

"Hopefully bringing Tuitel to campus will enable changes to be made," said Ashley Hayden, director of campus life for SAB. "UK is striving to a top-20 university (status) and being more inclusive and aware; being diverse in students will accomplish that mission."

The challenges that will be held each day will ask students to simulate having a disability and try to enter a building on campus, shoot a basketball while being confined to a wheelchair and participate in a wheelchair slalom. Other activities at Patterson Office Tower plaza will include making a paper airplane and writing a note blindfolded to experience blindness, reading from a book backward from a mirror to illustrate dyslexia, and mouthing words from note cards to a friend to stimulate muteness.

Opening ceremonies will include speeches from Student Government President Rachel Watts and Michael Brent, a Pi Kappa Phi alumnus paralyzed from the neck down, and disability training conducted by Pi Kappa Phi.

On Wednesday, there will also be a dean's luncheon where the deans of the colleges on campus will learn of disabilities by simulating a disability during lunch.

White awareness bracelets, similar to Lance Armstrong's yellow Live Strong bracelets, will also be for sale for $2 at POT plaza - all proceeds will go to Push America. Greek organizations have been challenged to purchase the most bracelets. The winner of the challenge will receive $150 to go to its respective philanthropy.

"I can't believe how far this week has come," Schuette said. "So many people have rallied around such an important cause."