Alum Earl Wren ’24 receives AHEAD Student Recognition Award

Mount Holyoke College alum Earl Wren ’24 has been awarded the 2024 Association on Higher Education And Disability (AHEAD) Student Recognition Award for their work amplifying student-led networks of accessibility and disability support and providing critical feedback to the College’s Disability Services office.

Wren, who majored in psychology, minored in gender studies and earned a Five College certificate in queer, trans and sexuality studies, was a Disability Services Fellow from their sophomore year on campus until graduation. “I consider myself a multiply, visibly and severely disabled nonverbal person with higher support needs,” Wren said. “I am a full-time wheelchair user and a full-time AAC [augmentative and alternative communication] user.”

The AHEAD Student Recognition Award was established to “recognize outstanding effort by an undergraduate or graduate student in representing disability identity or community on campus or by increasing campus access through advocacy or involvement.” With this award, AHEAD intends “not only to recognize but also to encourage students to become involved in the issues of physical, technological, attitudinal and programmatic accessibility as well as disability.”

Wren was nominated for the award by C. Ross, accommodation coordinator for Disability Services at Mount Holyoke. Ross described Wren as having a “grounding and motivating presence” during their time on campus. Besides the fact that Wren holds multiple personal and disabled identities (that often experience a large amount of diagonal/inter-ableism from within broader disabled communities), Ross felt it important to nominate them for the award because their work wasn’t just carried out when they were a Peer Fellow — much of it was achieved independently, and Ross wanted to recognize that.

“I consider myself lucky to have crossed paths with Earl at Mount Holyoke College,” Ross said. “When I first met Earl as a new Fellow, I was struck by their professional interests, skills, maturity and unique perspectives on the world. Since then, my admiration for them has only grown.”

During their time as a Fellow, Wren set in motion and completed various projects. These included initiating a review of the campus disability services office name, clarifying resources and campus practices that are important to disabled students and hosting student-focused events. In their first year as a Fellow, Wren worked closely with Dining Services management and the Disability Services office to create clarified signage and updated goals of the "Tranquility Room" within the Dining Commons, which provides a space for those with sensory needs in a very busy, stimulating place.

In 2022 and 2023, Wren presented programming to a number of audiences, including a presentation on the intricacies of AAC and AAC advocacy during BOOM! 2023. Additionally, Wren served as a student member for a senior accommodation coordinator search, providing insightful feedback and student perspective throughout the process. They were also the student moderator of Mount Holyoke’s Common Read 2023 Kick-Off: “Disability Visibility” with Alice Wong. By moderating this event, Wren highlighted the importance of representation and leadership of those most impacted by ableism, which coincidentally is one of Sins Invalid’s “10 Principles of Disability Justice.”

Reflecting on Wren’s time at Mount Holyoke, it is clear to Ross that Wren understands that “awareness training and opportunities, alongside direct support for those marginalized, are both needed to dismantle systemic barriers to access and success.” Ross continued, “These presentations have been excellently facilitated forums for learning that leads into action, and I’ve repeatedly received praise from students and staff on Earl’s behalf about their content and methods for teaching. Throughout all of this, Earl demonstrates consistency, reliability in their follow-through and conscientious problem-solving, and they are kind, humorous and understanding.”

Looking toward the future, Wren is working on becoming one of the first nonverbal and AAC user specialist/speech language pathologists by taking some pre-requisite classes for graduate school. Wren wanted to attend graduate school immediately after graduation from MHC, but was unable to due to visa issues and, ironically, inaccessibility of programs.

“At MHC, I would like to say that I helped foster a disability community,” Wren said. “I didn't create it, and the disability community at MHC will keep on going without me, but I hope I helped in making it bigger and better, more intersectional, with more resources, more representation and positive visibility, and more accessibility. I became an activist and achieved all these things not in spite of my disability but because of it.”