QUICK TAKES - November 2020

Disabilities Services Office Names 2020 “Disability Advocates of the Year” as Part of Disabilities Awareness Month

October was Disability Awareness Month. The DMC Disability Services Office (DSO) celebrated their seventh annual recognition of College faculty and staff who have actively served students with “disAbilities” and named three employees as “Disability Advocates of the Year.” The honorees include Beverly Cage, Director of Student Leadership and Campus Life; Associate Professor of Chemistry Dan Lindley with the Natural Sciences Department; and Professor of History Brian Hart with the Social Sciences Department.

Each year, the “Disability Advocate of the Year” award program invites students to nominate outstanding faculty and staff who made a positive impact in the lives of DMC accommodated students as well as the campus community. Nominations are then scored by a panel comprised of staff and students. Honorees receive a certificate of appreciation and a disability advocate lapel pin as well as have their name engraved on a plaque that is displayed inside the East Campus DSO workspace.

The following inspiring nomination for Cage as a “Disability Advocate of the Year” award recipient exemplifies the impact and influence faculty and staff provide DMC students:

“To really understand how much Mrs. Cage has impacted my life, I feel I must be completely transparent and put myself out there. After graduating from Del Mar's Vocational nursing program in the Fall of 2004, I fell ill and ended up in a wheelchair. After about a year of being confined to a wheelchair and rehab, I was able to walk again with the use of a cane. With my health as it was, I could no longer work as a pediatric nurse and had to rethink my career path. All these life experience robbed me of the person I once was. By the time I returned to Del Mar in the Summer of 2018, I was lost, broken, and withdrawn. I heard about SGA and reached out to Mrs. Cage. Upon meeting her for the first time, she informed me about SGA and other clubs. She invited me to return in the Fall when SGA would be starting their meetings and the rest of the clubs would be recruiting. I remember leaving her office and feeling a spark of hope. I felt that for the first time someone saw me beyond my disability. I returned to her office in the Fall of 2018 and became involved with SGA. Since then she has continued to play a large part in my success at Del Mar and continues to be an active mentor in my life. Currently, she is my advisor as SGA President. She continues to impact my life more than I can ever put into words. She has helped me find the confidence and pride I had lost and has helped mold me into the leader that I am today. She continues to give me the positive reinforcement I need to stay motivated and the push I need to keep moving forward. I know that without her advice and encouragement, I would not have reached the success and accomplishments that I have today. I went from being a shell of a human being to helping reestablish and being President of Safe Space, President of SGA, Vice-President of PTK and the Ambassadors, a board Member of the Mosaic Project of South Texas, a member of the Coastal Bend Wellness Foundation Advisory Board, a National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) Connections facilitator and NAMI Instructor. As hard as it is to be this open, it is a small price to pay for all that she has given me. I hope that other students can find the kind of mentor and role-model that she has been in my life.”

Congratulations to this year’s recipients for their 2020 “Disability Advocate of the Year” Awards!