Aloha Means Hello and Goodbye

Editorial

Aloha Means Hello and Goodbye

Megan A. Conway, PhD

Editor 

In the summer of 2001 I was a new faculty member at the Center on Disability Studies (CDS), University of Hawaii, literally fresh off the boat from Berkeley, California and still calling myself “Dr. Conway” with awe and pride after years of pursuing my doctorate-or-die. I was chipper, passionate and dumb. I landed in Hawaii as all Haoles do with preconceived and completely wrong ideas about life in Paradise and an irrational fear of giant cockroaches. And as a disabled white woman from the land of Crip Freedom and Pride, I was also in for an additional shock when confronted by prejudice and inaccessibility. Complaining about my rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act got me nothing but mute stares, mulish put offs and a muttered “show some Aloha.” You think?

I came onboard CDS to coordinate a federal grant focused on transition, but my somewhat (at the time) hidden passion was Disability Studies. I had nabbed the job at CDS partly via a connection between my Berkeley mentor Susan O’Hara and longtime Disability Studies Quarterly (DSQ) Editor David Pfeiffer, who was settling into semi-retirement in Hawaii and was pleased to have me increase the number of faculty with disabilities at CDS from 1 to 2. We were soon joined by fellow Cripstar Steven Brown, and felt ourselves almost overrepresented at our center then comprised of 100 faculty and staff. 

By 2003 David had been forced (by his account) to relinquish his editorship of DSQ and had decided to start a new journal, the Review of Disability Studies: An International Journal, with me and Steve as Assistant Editors. I was excited by the prospect of learning about academic publishing and the wild world of Disability Studies under David’s tutelage. And then David died. I did not know David well personally, just had a great deal of respect for him professionally, but I do remember watching the canoes paddle out with his ashes on board thinking, quite selfishly, “now what”? 

Now what was the inaugural issue of RDS, published in December of 2004, conceived of and assembled by David and executed with great enthusiasm and limited experience by Steve and me. It was a gargantium issue, with 27 articles, essays, creative works, book reviews and notes from the field. Contributors (in addition to the three noble editors) included legends and novices, the now living and the now passed: Mark Sherry, Reiko Hyashi & Mariko Kimura, Mary Fleming & William Ross, Adam Corrico & Leonard Jason, Jennifer Coles, Janice Dewey & Megan OHare, David Connor, Beth Omansky, Alex Lubet , Steven Gilson & Elizabeth DePoy, Mark Medoff, Jillian Weise, Tanis Doe, Ottmar Paul, Jean Johnson and Steven Taylor. I really have no idea how or why we put together such a big baby, but it was a good baby and the beginning of a creative project that has sustained me through professional hardships and joys for the past 15 years. 

As you may have guessed by now, I am leading up to a goodbye. After 18 years with the University of Hawaii and 15 years in various editorial roles with RDS culminating with Editor-In-Chief, I am heading back to California and handing over the reins of RDS to someone new. The baby is now a teenager and ready to try new things. I know that our wonderful Editorial Board, Review Board, Editorial Assistant, and new leadership will keep a steady course and maintain RDS’ relevance in the ever growing field of Disability Studies. I leave the particulars of the “now what” for the new Editor. 

If you have made it this far in my monologue about the humanization of an academic journal, you might be curious to know what I am doing next. I am leaving academia for a bit, or forever, time will tell, to work in the “real world”. Sometimes we have to move back to move forward. Sometimes we have to say goodbye to say hello. 

An Entry for the Irish Sporting Pages: Remembering Susan O'Hara

Editorial

An Entry for the Irish Sporting Pages: Remembering Susan O’Hara

Megan A. Conway, PhD

RDS Editor-In-Chief

I sat down to coffee with one of my students the other day, started dishing out advice, and realized that I was her mentor. And the scary thing was, she was actually listening to me. Throughout my life I have had the good fortune to know other people with disabilities who I have looked up to and who have given me the strength to persevere when things seemed impossible. Realizing that I have come of an age where I can and should do the same for others is sobering.

Photo below is of Megan and Susan at the DSP Graduation in 1992.

One of my dearest mentors and friends, Susan O’Hara, just passed away this summer at the age of 80. I first got to know Susan thirty years ago when she was Director of the Disabled Students Program (DSP) at UC Berkeley and I was an enthusiastic and overwhelmed Freshman. Susan, a polio survivor, gathered a group of disabled students together on a regular basis to discuss disability issues on campus and offer advice on how to address them. The advice I remember most is, “What are YOU going to do about it?” She encouraged us to identify specific problems that we all shared, think through solutions, and act collectively on those solutions. It seems cheezey to say this, but Susan “empowered” us. She made us feel like whatever life dished up, we could do something about it.

Susan saw the funny side of things that were also unfair or exasperating. A favorite story of mine was her description of first coming to UC Berkeley and visiting the “dorm” for students with severe physical disabilities. Instead of being housed with other students, their dorm was literally a wing of the campus hospital. “When I rolled in there I expected to see a bunch of sick people,” said Susan, “But the first thing that happened was somebody handed me a paper cup of Scotch and I thought to myself, ‘hmmmm, these folks are definitely not sick!’” She was soon to direct Berkeley’s first residential program for disabled students, which moved out of the hospital and into an actual dorm, but she recognized the wonderful irony of the sense of autonomy that students felt from having their own space even if it was in a hospital wing. 

I last saw Susan a year before she died after she had been confined to her bed for several years due to illness. I will be honest, when I walked into her room I did expect to see a sick person. “Guess what?” she bubbled conspiratorially as I poured tea and selected from an assortment of cookies on the table next to her bed, “Word has it that Queen Elizabeth is going to step down and pass over Charles to make William King!” “Umm, are you sure about that?” I scrolled through the internet looking for a reputable source for this information. “Yes, my attendant told me so this morning. Can you imagine? What does Charles think about THAT?” “I’m sorry Susan but I can’t find anything that confirms that story is true.” “Oh no,” she crowed, “It looks like I have been the victim of fake news!”

Susan, of unabashed nosy Irish stock,  used to call the obituaries the “Irish Sporting Pages.” She loved to read the stories of other people’s lives, or rather what their friends and loved ones thought were the stories of their lives.  She was always modest about her own accomplishments; her leadership in establishing one of the first supported living university residential programs for students with severe disabilities, her years working to advocate for (and exemplifying) independent living, her travels abroad, her volunteer work for a Bay Area philanthropic Foundation, her passion for and contribution to the UC Berkeley Disability Rights and Independent Living Movement Oral History Project, and of course the many dozens of young (and old) people like me who she mentored and encouraged. 

I bid you “adieu” Susan. If any one of us can contribute half as much material to the Irish Sporting Pages as you did, we will have accomplished much. But we still have time to work on our entry.