CONTACT: TOM SNEE
300 Plaza Centre One
Iowa City IA 52242
(319) 384-0010; fax (319) 384-0024
e-mail: tom-snee@uiowa.edu

Release: Oct. 23, 2002

UI to honor Walz, Dawson and history department for improving access for disabled

Drs. Robert David Dawson and Thomas Walz and the UI department of history will be honored by the UI Council on Disability Awareness to recognize their efforts to enhance access to campus facilities and services for persons with disabilities.

The ceremony for this year’s award recipients will be Thursday, Oct. 24 at 4 p.m. in The Commons, Room 305, Schaeffer Hall. Vladimir Cuk, a renowned disability activist, will also speak.

The ceremony is free and open to the public.

The history department is being recognized for its efforts to accommodate four graduate students with disabilities. Dawson is founder of the Iowa Center for Assistive Technology and Educational Resources, which uses such technologies as books-on-tape, voice-activated software, scanning and reading software, and Kurzweil printers to help disabled students fully understand their class and study material. Walz, professor emeritus in the School of Social Work, helped Bill Sackter open Wild Bill's Coffeeshop in the School of Social Work and secured a Community Development Block Grant to develop an offshoot program, Uptown Bill’s Small Mall, which opened in September of 2001.