Features
Winning the most important races
Eight-time Boston Marathon wheelchair race champion and Olympian Jean Driscoll was the speaker at the kickoff of Disabilities Awareness Month on campus in April. The two-degree Urbana graduate, who is now a campus development officer, won seven varsity athletic letters — four in basketball and three in track.
And
she's just one of the many inspiring stories since Professor Timothy Nugent
in 1948 led the U of I to become the first university to provide a support
system for students with disabilities and established what is now the Division
of Disability Resources and Educational Services. Early on, competitive
sports were part of the program.
The number of U of I firsts in accessibility and athletics is stunning:
1949:
Organized National Wheelchair Basketball Association and held first national
wheelchair basketball tournament.
1950: First university to introduce wheelchair curb cuts.
1952: First buses equipped with wheelchair lifts.
1961: First architectural accessibility standards, which later became national
standards.
1965: First study-abroad program for disabled students.
1977: First university to award varsity letters awards to disabled athletes.
1980: First university to select a wheelchair athlete as its Athlete of
the Year.
So the U of I was prepared for the arrival of Driscoll and the other "Rollin' Illini" in the 1980s when other universities were just getting into the disabled student access game. The U of I athletes—first men and, by Driscoll's time, women—were way ahead of the competitive games, too.
When
Driscoll, who was born with spinal bifida, gives speeches, she tells audiences
that disabilities aren't principles that define a human being, but rather
characteristics like hair and eye color.
Over the last six decades, she and thousands of other disabled students have come to the U of I, competed, won, lost, learned, graduated, succeeded … just like the other students.
—Mike Lillich
Learn more> Division of Disability Resources and Educational Services