College Organizations Networking Now Each Creating Ties (CONNECT):

Shana and the Ablers Club march in the Disability Pride Parade in Chicago. Shana is holding the banner on the left.

Shana Holet is a sophomore at Saginaw Valley State University and has been identified as a leader by her campus and CONNECT.  Shana is a recipient of an SVSU academic scholarship and a Social Work Major. She is President of Ablers Club of SVSU; a student run organization that acts as a support and activism group for students with disabilities. In winter of 2006 the organization was awarded Student Organization of the Year by SVSU.

Shana is in fact a person with a disability and a disability activist leader on her campus.  She has not always been a disability activist leader or willing to share that she is a person with a disability who is an activist. When Shana was a freshmen at SVSU she tried to hide a part of who she is, her disability, from the rest of the world. She had always felt ashamed of her disability and could not see how her experience of something so embarrassing could bring anything good to the world.

During Shana's second semester in college she was tired of fighting and living with her disability alone. She received class accommodations from the Office of Disability Services, but still felt alone. She set out to explore the disability support group, the Ablers Club. She went into this group telling her self, “I am going to just try and blend in”.

The group was small and blending in was impossible. By the end of three-meetings, in a three-month period, Shana was elected president of the Ablers Club. She did not truly believe she could be the president and other people also expressed some doubts in her abilities.  Shana did not believe in herself and even thought her disability would get in the way of being a leader. As Shana emerged into her new role in her sophomore year, she started to see and came to know the other students with disabilities. Each day was a new day filled with uncertainties, learning experiences, and a constant growing need for change for students with disabilities.  Shana saw other students having to crawl onto an unassailable bus in order to go to an away football game and saw disappointed freshmen not being able to participate in all Homecoming festivities. She pushed on leading a group of people who, like herself, had disabilities, toward changing Saginaw Valley State University.  From this she realized fulfilling the mission of Ablers Club was worth everything--even being a person with a disability.

Shana was supported by the student disabilities services coordinator Cynthia Woiderski, who often coordinates events to help students be successful. Through a job-shadowing day for students with disabilities Shana met Kathy McCreedy of DiversAbility. By being hooked up with resources beyond those at SVSU, Shana was able to meet other student leaders of disability support and activism groups across the state. Kathy sent Shana information about a CONNECT Retreat for student leaders of disability groups on Michigan campuses led by Theresa Squires, in March of 2006.

 Shana will tell you that it was not until she experienced the CONNECT Retreat and a second retreat for Disability Activists and their Allies that she did not see her self as much of an activist. It was through CONNECT that Shana was able to meet students from all across Michigan that are working for change for students with disabilities on their campuses.  Shana says, “CONNECT really made me feel not alone in trying to change campus life for students with disabilities, because I was able to meet others just like me who faced many of the same challenges and victories”. Through joining up with CONNECT Shana received monthly e-zines with scholarship and internship opportunities for college students with disabilities.

Shana says, “the Ablers Club and CONNECT both helped me realized that being a person with a disability and a leader are nothing to be shameful about”. 

Shana now is one of five Summer CONNECT interns who are visiting all Michigan colleges and promoting disability support groups like the one she leads at Saginaw Valley State University. This is all because of being a student with a disability who was given the opportunity to be connected with other students with disabilities through College Organizations Networking Now Each Creating Ties.

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