DisCo Celebration of Graduates and Awards Ceremony 2025

Remi is a 3rd year undergraduate student studying Urban Planning and Sustainable Development, Critical Disability Studies, and Honors Interdisciplinary Studies. With DOC Supervisor Axel Cichocki, he helped create the Disabled Peer Mentorship Program because he believes that disabled students are the best people to support disabled students. He loves visiting home to see his dog, playing wheelchair basketball with the Adaptive Sports Club, and crafts. He looks forward to continuing his education in urban planning and disability studies in order to work towards a more equitable and accessible world.

Elliott Hawley is a graduating senior who will be receiving a BS in Behavioral Neuroscience, with minors in Critical Disability Studies and Honors Interdisciplinary Studies. They are multiply disabled, with both visible and invisible disabilities. Elliott currently works for the Institute for Critical Disability Studies and is passionate about accessibility, education, and wheelchair basketball. In their role as a Peer Advisor for ICDS, they have created faculty workshops on topics like the potential harm of attendance policies, supporting neurodivergent students, and disability justice in the classroom. They are part of many organizations on campus, including serving as Vice President of the the Adaptive Sports Club here on Western’s campus. Elliott one day hopes to be a clinical neuropsychologist, with the goal of supporting individuals who have not been able to access a diagnosis due to inequitable systems. They are currently applying for graduate school with the hopes of earning a PhD. They have enjoyed their years at Western and look forward to new opportunities! They would like to thank everyone who has supported them during their undergraduate years and thank anyone who has been working hard to make a more accessible world.

Ella (he/they) is a trans/queer disabled artist graduating with a degree in theater performance and a minor in Critical Disability Studies. He has had the honor of working at the Disability Outreach Center for his last couple years at Western and has had a blast planning events and being in community with folks. Post graduation he is moving back to Seattle to pursue acting full time and is looking forward to making theater a more accessible place for all!

Kristen Chmielewski (she/her) is an Associate Professor of Health and Human Development and teaches courses on inclusive and therapeutic recreation, annually partnering with local organizations so that students can plan and provide accessible recreation programming and camp experiences. An absolute highlight of her six years at WWU has been teaching courses exploring critical disability studies, disability history, and activism for the CDS minor and the Honors College. An accidental disability historian, she is currently working on a book project that explores how disability policies affected the careers of urban public school teachers in the United States prior to Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. When not pouring over hundred-year-old documents in archives or adding jokes to her class PowerPoints that will amuse one student at most, Kristen loves game nights, pickleball, and beach strolls with her dogs, Scout and Harper.

Dr. Jim Graham is a Professor in the Department of Psychology at Western Washington University. He completed an undergraduate degree in psychology at Purdue University, a masters specializing in couples and family therapy at Pepperdine University and earned his doctorate in counseling psychology at Texas A&M University. Jim is a licensed psychologist whose clinical work has focused on psychological and psychoeducational assessment and couples and family therapy. Since coming to Western in 2006, Jim has taught undergraduate and graduate courses focusing on statistics and research methods, romantic relationships, human sexuality, and psychological assessment. Jim served as the chair of the Department of Psychology from 2017 to 2024 and is excited to have returned to full time teaching and research. Jim’s research interests include psychometric meta-analyses, best practices in quantitative methods, and adaptive processes in romantic relationships (or what goes “right” in relationships). More recently he has begun to combine his clinical and personal interests by investigating the therapeutic use of tabletop roleplaying games in mental health practice. Jim is committed to mentoring students in research, and his work frequently includes Western undergraduate students as co-authors.

Andrew Lucchesi (he/they) is a multiply disabled faculty member in English and Critical Disability Studies. They are a co founder of the Institute for Critical Disability Studies, where they focus on developing CDS courses, advising the CDS minor, mentoring disabled students, promoting accessible teaching practices, and leading community centered programs such as the UnConference, the ICDS Fellows Program, and peer support groups.

GIM is co-founder and a current co-director for WWU Institute for Critical Disability Studies. G is also a Senior Instructor teaching in the sciences and honors, and advises student clubs. As someone whose existence spans multiple marginalized identities, GIM has a deeply personal stake in cultivating accessible and intersectionally-inclusive spaces. We need spaces of justice and belonging, not assimilation.

Maggie’s family has described her as stubborn, kind, thoughtful, curious, and always in a hurry. Being neurodivergent and having Cerebral Palsy, Maggie wanted to pursue a degree in behavioral neuroscience at Western in 2018 but immediately hit barriers as a disabled student and a service dog handler. By her second quarter, the Equal Opportunities Office, directors of the Chemistry Department and DAC, University President and Vice Presidents received an essay email from Maggie, informing them that her experience had been unacceptable. In response, Jon McGough, then the director of the DAC, requested Maggie’s advice on improving accessibility at Western and reserved her weekly meetings. From then on, Maggie worked with Jon and departments across campus to improve access for disabled students for nearly 4 years. Maggie became the founding president of Adaptive Sports Club, adviser on accessible chemistry lab design, and a vocal advocate for the removal of physical barriers, several of which are no longer here today. After graduating, Maggie worked for the Division of Vocational Rehabilitation before pursuing her own business in disability consulting where she will help connect disabled individuals to resources. Maggie is currently a volunteer coach for Adaptive Sports Club and works as a caregiver. Maggie understands how empowering the feeling of belonging can be when inclusion is done right. She wants to continue to find and create spaces where disabled people feel, not just accommodated, but like they were considered too when the space was created.

Angela developed a chronic pain condition at 15 and has since been a user of a variety of mobility aids. As a Western student, Angela quickly became involved with the disabled community on campus and took advantage of every opportunity to advocate for equity and the well-being of fellow disabled students, including attending meetings with university leadership, early committee meetings regarding the formation of the Institute for Critical Disability Studies, and accepting an officer position for the developing WWU Adaptive Sports Club. Later serving as club president, their dedication kept the club intact through pandemic uncertainty and allowed the club to become the thriving and supportive group that it is today. Though no longer a student, Angela remains involved with the club as a volunteer coach. Professionally, Angela is a paraeducator for the Bellingham School District, a current member of the Washington Governor’s Committee of Disability Issues and Employment, and is starting a business in disability consulting where they will offer training for other local businesses and organizations as well as advice on functional accessibility. Angela’s friends describe them as a “connector”–someone who builds community and protects it with fierce generosity, stubborn determination, and bold kindness. This love they have for their community shows in both their big accomplishments as well as in the little decisions they make every day.

The exhibition Embodiment brought together works by 19 artists who confronted social perceptions of disability. All the works originated in the artists’ own experiences. Drawing on their unique perspectives, the artists convey both the pleasures and difficulties of their daily lives. They express the emotional toll of marginalization and the experience of vulnerability in face of dependency and exclusion, but also the comfort of convivial forms of care and the liberating potential of social interdependence. Deeply invested in bioethics and activism, the artists turn their art into forms of resistance and a radical challenge to the social structures that exclude them. They present the complexities of living in an environment that constantly places obstacles in their way and, going beyond the ableism of physical space, they critically explore the structural forms of social oppression and objectification that persons with a disability face. By interrogating the dominant understanding of normality, autonomy, dependency, and other normative concepts that are persistently applied to the condition of disability, the artists bring viewers to a profound reevaluation of what it means to be disabled. The exhibition centered on conceptually driven art in a variety of mediums, including video, photography, sound, sculpture, installations, performance, and public intervention. The exhibition also included a screendance section curated by choreographer Pam Kuntz.

The Disability Studies and Action Collaborative UnConference began in October 2019 as a community-focused event where students, scholars, professionals, and independent community members come together to confront problems facing disabled people locally. Every participant is treated as an expert, with an equal voice in naming the challenges that matter and shaping how we respond. Without the UnConference, there would be no Institute for Critical Disability Studies or Critical Disability Studies Minor. It remains ICDS’s annual flagship event every October.