New Mexico State University, in collaboration with East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania, proposes a three-year program to increase the participation of individuals with mobility disabilities in computing. Persons with mobility disabilities are one of the largest groups of individuals with disabilities; however, they are not often targeted by educational programs because of the difficulty of accessing their community and the lack of academic role models to serve as advocates for them. The proposed project, ENABLE, is a comprehensive program that targets individuals with mobility disabilities who are in high school, post-high school, or early college years and have not yet chosen a career path. It will provide them with the knowledge, technology, and support they need to address the barriers to full participation in computing. ENABLE will run short workshops to expose participants to computing as an educational and career path, in order to demonstrate its feasibility and to motivate and excite the students. It will also provide appropriate assistive technology to its participants, and it will support their success through mentoring and interaction with role models. In addition, the project will investigate various interactive video conferencing strategies for delivering its programs; this could lead to a model for institutions of higher education to use in more effectively serving this population. Partnerships with existing programs such as Reaching the Pinnacle and AccessComputing will serve to strengthen the quality of the ENABLE programs.
