Welcome!

The Disability Cultural Center offers public programs, discussion series, arts-based workshops, and one-on-one support — as we work to engage an understanding of disability issues as social justice issues, and disability as a site for identity, community, and culture.

Our Center is for everyone. We welcome students, staff, faculty, community members; we welcome Disabled, Deaf, Sick, and Mad people; nondisabled allies/accomplices; people with conditions who may or may not identify as disabled; and people who are thinking through their relationship to disability identity. We’re so glad you’re here.

We recognize that the Disability Cultural Center, housed in UIC’s Behavioral Sciences Building, inhabits spaces built on the occupied original homelands of the Council of Three Fires: The Ojibwe, Potawatomi, Odawa Nations; and other Nations such as the Menominee, Ho-Chunk, Miami, and many other Indigenous Peoples. This Center, within an academic institution, must work towards a relationship of support and healing with Native communities. We honor those who call this land home.

[Photo above]: A handpainted mural in the Disability Cultural Center lounge that is a large blue circle with the words “you are not alone” and some birds. It’s been written on by various visitors to the center and has a border of fairy lights. Next to the mural is a lamp and a whiteboard with: “Welcome to the Disability Cultural Center! We’re glad you’re here,” and information about the space. Above the whiteboard is a pennant with fabric flags showing a cross-disability solidarity logo and Harriet Tubman.