In case you missed the news during the hustle and bustle of the end of the school year, the Disability Cultural Center (DCC) welcomed its new director in May! The Peel sat down with Carrie Ingersoll-Wood to ask her some fun and insightful questions so you can get to know her just a little bit better.
Q: What’s your favorite memory from your undergraduate years?
A: Like many first-generation students, I am a non-traditional student and began college in my 30s. By then, I already had three children, and so my favorite memory includes them. My favorite memory was hearing their voices cheering for me above the crowd when I walked for my associate’s and bachelor’s degrees.
Q: What’s your go-to spot to grab food or a drink on campus?
Since my office is on the first floor in the Schine Student Center, I love to hop over to the bookstore and grab a drink. Let’s be honest though, I love getting drinks in the bookstore because Jerry’s customer service is the greatest. He brightens my day!
Q: What’s your favorite off-campus food spot within walking distance to campus?
And I can only pick one, right? Because I have a lifelong love affair with pizza, it has to be Varsity.
Q: What was the best class you took as an undergraduate and why?
Darwin and Dickens. This course took me abroad to London and it combined two of my favorite subjects: evolutionary biology and literature. Walking Darwin’s Sandwalk (his thinking path) and touring Down House really left an impression on me. Standing in Charles Dickens’s London home also made this English major’s heart skip a beat. I applied what I learned in this course to teach my English high school classes. I loved using an EvoBio lens to examine literature.
Q: What’s your favorite campus building?
I feel like I should say Schine because I work there, but I really love Bird Library. Some of the most important conversations of my academic career have occurred in Bird Library.
Q: What’s the best advice you’ve ever gotten?
Because I came to education later in life and was not sure what I could do with my degree, a professor I consulted about potential career paths told me, “Carrie, you have to let your education settle.” Her advice helped me put the urgency to employ my education into perspective. She was absolutely right, by the way: I just needed to trust the process, give it a little time, and then the answer became clear. Dr. Gayle Whittier, if you’re reading this, thank you!
Q: What should students know about the DCC?
The DCC is a space where students can come to celebrate disability as diversity, disability as a positive identity, and the DCC, which is housed in the Intercultural Collective along with the Office of Multicultural Affairs and the LGBTQ Resource Center, is also an intersectional space for connection with friends. We have a Low Stim Room that students can reserve and use if they’re feeling overstimulated. It’s a quiet space to decompress from the hustle and bustle of campus. The DCC has a gorgeous lounge where we host affinity group meetings. And last but not least, Fridays the DCC is all about PAWSitive Vibes. Buddy, a black Labrador Retriever and the DCC’s Pawsitivity Ambassador, comes to work. He’s always happy to meet people and he loves attention!
Q: What are some DCC events you’re super excited for?
I’m really excited about our annual events, OrangeAbility and IceAbility, but also the programming that I am currently working on with partners across campus; we are going to bring some really great speakers to campus. I just booked our first RockAbility event. Tijuana Danger Dogs will be playing the Underground on Nov. 4 at 8 p.m. Follow the DCC on Instagram for details about our events and for programming updates!
Now that you know a little bit about Carrie, make it a start-of-semester mission to meet her in person! The DCC is located within the Intercultural Collective at 132 Schine Student Center, so stop in to say hi or attend one of the DCC’s events throughout the school year!