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About PRIDE

Mission Statement

The purpose of the PRIDE group is to serve students with disabilities while promoting disability rights awareness within the entire University community. Besides overcoming physical barriers in our environment, students with "visible" and "invisible" disabilities often encounter labels, fears, and prejudices. As a group, we hope to bring attention to these attitudal barriers as well as architectural barriers on campus. Our role will be that of advocates, educators, initiators, and doers. We are looking for students, faculty, and staff who want to actively promote the human rights, dignity, and equality of persons with disabilities.

Objectives

1. To promote understanding and raise awareness among students, faculty, and staff to the needs of students with disabilities in higher education.
2. To work for increased accessibility to programs and facilities.
3. To increase services for students with disabilities by raising awareness and encouraging volunteer participation in needed support areas (i.e., chair attendants, readers for persons with visual disabilities, notetakers, etc.)

History

Our organization, originally titled People United in Support of the Handicapped (PUSH), is the second PUSH group to be established on a college campus, although many campuses have similar groups. The first PUSH group was organized at Indiana University in Pennsylvania. Former Student Residential Programs administrator, Greg Miller, was instrumental in formulating that group and brought the idea to WIU's campus. The first organizational meeting was held in 1982. We are a recognized student organization and receive funding through the Council on Student Activity Funding.

In light of the disability rights movement, the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990, and the importance of equitable appropriate terminology, the organization voted to change its name. In June 1993, PUSH became PRIDE — Promoting the Rights of Individuals with Disabilities Everywhere — a name depicting the purpose of the organization with an acronym symbolizing the fervor with which it achieves its goals.

To become a member, one must attend two consecutive meetings. A list of meeting dates and times can be found on this site.

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