Alumni Disability Alliance
The mission of the Alumni Disability Alliance (ADA) is to advance and strengthen purposeful, lifelong, relationships with resilient Grinnell alumni, students, faculty, and staff, who live with a disability.
Our guiding goals are:
- To increase the visibility of alumni who live with a visible or invisible disability within the alumni network.
- To facilitate connections between alumni with disabilities¹ and campus.
- To facilitate connections between the ADA and other affinity groups.
Programming and Events
MentorGrinnell, Virtual and Regional MeetUps, Educational Awareness (social media takeover), "Ask Me Anything" (AMA) Panels, Virtual Trivia Night, and Community Building.
Leadership/Working Group
Brianne Benness ’08, Emmy Potter ’24, Em Huss-Lederman ’24.5, Fae Townsend ’01, and Johanna Lozano ’11.
We are looking for leaders and volunteers. Email Sarah Smith-Benanti, associate director of alumni and donor relations for diverse communities, if you would like to join our bimonthly Zoom planning meetings.
What is an affinity group?
Affinity groups create space for Grinnellians of shared identities to connect on meaningful levels beyond the traditional class and regional structure. The Alumni Disability Alliance (ADA) of Squirrels will increase opportunities for you to get involved and meet other disabled alumni1, foster a sense of community, build a medium through which you can network and share information and resources, engage in relevant, targeted fundraising activities, and create a sense of community and shared values.
The ADA will create spaces where you can share your stories with each other and students, and add to the collective narrative of the College.
The ADA will not only create another avenue for you to engage with each other and the College but, through your participation, will strengthen the College’s mission by fostering bonds between yourself and the campus.
¹ We recognize the ongoing discussion around person-first language (e.g., ‘person with a disability’) and identity-first language (e.g., ‘disabled person’). In an effort to maximize inclusiveness and respect the diverse perspectives within the community, we are choosing to use both linguistic styles within our communication.