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People walking around on Rutgers Day on the New Brunswick campus

Welcome to Rutgers–New Brunswick

Whether you're a first-year student or well on the way to your degree, Rutgers is a big place with limitless possibilities. Click below to find handy tips to start your semester off right.

What You Need to Know

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A student athlete using a wheelchair races on a track

Rutgers Disability Awareness Month

A Campus-Wide Celebration

Rutgers University is one of the most diverse institutions in the Big 10. Every October, we celebrate Disability Awareness Month, recognizing the vital role disabilities play in shaping our vibrant, inclusive community. Discover resources and actions to support accessibility, and learn how you can keep the conversation going all year long.

Resources and Action

Disability takes many forms, both apparent and non-apparent. Disability Awareness Month at Rutgers is an opportunity for our community to recognize, bring awareness to, and learn about disabilities and the disability community.

Two students sit in a lecture hall

Disability Studies Minor

The Disability Studies minor is an interdisciplinary Rutgers–New Brunswick collaboration designed to support an intrinsically interdisciplinary approach to studying the lived experience of disability and the theoretical frameworks that surround that experience.

A person doing yoga holds their hands together against a blue sky background

Cultivating Awareness

As an ally, you can take action and help cultivate an awareness of creating an inclusive environment for all individuals. Check out the Rutgers University Libraries' Books We Read blog series featuring books that highlight disability-related topics and written by authors with disabilities.

The Aira app is free to use by anyone on the campus grounds of Rutgers–New Brunswick.

Advancing Access with Aira

We're proud to be an Aira Access Partner, providing free around-the-clock, person-to-person visual interpreting services to anyone throughout the Rutgers–New Brunswick campuses. Students, staff, faculty, or visitors can use Aira for free on a smartphone simply by downloading the Aira app and connecting with an agent.

Share in the Experience

Each year, Rutgers students take to social media to share highlights of some of the Disability Awareness Month events aimed at amplifying awareness and visibility of disabilities.

Telling Our Stories

Icons identifying some of the different kinds of disabilities

Redefining the Meaning of Disability

Members of the Rutgers community reflect on one thing they want people to know about their experience as a person with a disability or as a caretaker for someone with a disability and how they want to be seen by the world.

Looking Back at Disability Awareness Month

Disability Awareness Month is packed with in-person programs and virtual events. Each year, participants learn how to be allies, meet new furry friends, get active with adaptive sports, and more.

Three people share information as part of a program on guide dogs. Two guide dogs sleep on the floor next to them.
Three people sit on a stage after a screening of the film Crip Camp, while the directors are seen via video conference on a screen behind them.
A student pets a service dog at an event for Disability Awareness Month
Two men with beards sit at a table during a panel discussion on service dogs for veterans. One of them is talking and the other one is listening while looking on.
Three staff members and a service dog from Canine Companions pose for a photo during Disability Awareness Month at Rutgers
A group of people wearing eye covers kick a ball on an athletic field while playing goalball, an adaptive sport for blind and visually impaired people.
A group of people wearing eye covers kick a ball on an athletic field while playing goalball, an adaptive sport for blind and visually impaired people.
Students pet a black and white therapy dog during the Who Let the Dogs In event
Students in wheelchairs play an adaptive form of basketball
A student wearing an eye cover holds a bat while playing beep baseball, an adaptive sport for blind athletes
A student wearing an eye cover takes a pitch while playing beep baseball, an adaptive sport for blind athletes

The Seeing Eye of Morristown, NJ, and the Rutgers Seeing Eye Puppy Raising Club presented a program for Disability Awareness Month 2023 aimed at bringing awareness to the visually impaired community.

The Mason Gross Filmmaking Center hosted a screening of Crip Camp (2020), a documentary film narrating the story of the upstate New York summer Camp Jened created exclusively for disabled teen campers, and a virtual panelist discussion with the film's directors James Le Brecht and Nicole Newnham, during Disability Awareness Month 2023.

An attendee pets a service dog after a panel discussion about the profound relationship between military veterans and their four-legged companions, as part of Disability Awareness Month 2023.

Students and community members learned about the invaluable impact of service dogs on the lives of our military veterans during a panel discussion presented by the Office of Veteran and Military Programs and Services, Canine Companions, and VA NJ Suicide Peer Support Program.

Canine Companions, the largest provider of service dogs, visited for a panel discussion about the profound relationship between military veterans and their four-legged companions, as part of Disability Awareness Month 2023.

Students kick a soccer ball back and forth while wearing eye covers during Adaptive Sports and Wellness Day 2023. The game, goalball, is an adaptive sport for the blind or visually impaired.

Participants wore eye covers to experience playing goalball, an adaptive sport for the blind or visually impaired, during Adaptive Sports and Wellness Day 2023.

Emotional support animal Jack visited campus for a Disability Awareness Month 2022 event, titled “Who Let the Dogs In?"

Students got to experience a game of wheelchair basketball during Adaptive Sports and Wellness Day 2022.

Students played beep baseball during Adaptive Sports and Wellness Day, part of Disability Awareness Month 2022.

Students played beep baseball during Adaptive Sports and Wellness Day, part of Disability Awareness Month 2022.

Beyond the Field

Rutgers hosted its first Blind and Adaptive Sports Day in 2017 aimed at showcasing abilities, opportunities, and educating the community about sports for people with disabilities. Since then, the event has grown into a campus-wide effort to raise awareness about disability, access, and inclusion—on and off the field.

A blind student athlete runs on a track
A player dribbles the ball during a game of wheelchair basketball.

Get Into the Games

    Goalball is an adaptive sport for the blind or visually impaired, invented in 1946 to help veterans of WWII rehabilitate from losing sight. 

    Learn More About Goalball

    Wheelchair basketball is one of the oldest wheelchair sports, created by World War II veterans in 1946.

    In beep baseball, players who are blind or have vision loss use the sound of a beeping ball and beeping bases to play the game.

    Thank You

    A special thank you to our 2025 committee, sponsors, partners, and program participants for helping us commemorate the many contributions and experiences of people living with disabilities here at Rutgers.

    Special thanks go to the School of Arts and Sciences Undergraduate Education for their generous donation. Thank you for believing in our mission.

    Active Planning Committee Members

    Christine Anderson • Braily Bernaber • Shannon Carratura • Barbara Cepeda • Caroline Coffield • Jennifer Demby • Raven Diaz • Paul Goobic • Crystal Greenhow • Nikhil Kishore • Kathy Loder-Murphy • Bret McCandless • Nychey Michel • Nadia Montgomery • Kevin Orcell • Javier Robles • Lisa Rossman-Murphy • Julia Sass Rubin • Natalie Schultz-Kahwaty • Jennifer Senick • Lauren Shallish • Gita Sharma • Cynthia Simon • Owen Taylor • Jakora Thomspon • Ayanna Towers • Brandon Truett • Nadine Venturin-Trinadade • Sherlock Washington

    Sponsors

    Association of Blind Athletes of New Jersey • Blind Athletes Inc. • Canine Companions • Center for Race and Politics in America • Children’s Lightning Wheels • Community Dance Education Programs • Community Grant from the Parkinson’s Foundation • Department of Kinesiology and Health • Department of Political Science • Disability Justice Coalition • Disability Studies Minor • GiGi's Playhouse • Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology • IDEA Innovation Grant • Mason Gross Rutgers Integrated Dance Collaboratory (IDC) • Mason Gross School of the Arts, Dance Department • Move4More • New Jersey Lightning Beep Baseball Team • New Jersey Travel Independence Program at Rutgers University • Office of Disability Services • Pinelands Preservation Alliance • Rutgers Business School • Rutgers Center for Adult Autism • Rutgers Disability Awareness Month Committee • Rutgers Honors College • Rutgers Institute for Health, Health Care Policy and Aging Research • Rutgers Recreation Center for Disability, Sports, Health and Wellness • Rutgers Recreation, Student Affairs, Rutgers–New Brunswick • Rutgers University Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy • Rutgers University–Newark • Rutgers University and New Jersey Association of People Supporting Employment First • Rutgers University New Jersey State Policy Lab • Rutgers University Libraries • School of Arts and Sciences Undergraduate Education • The Boggs Center on Disability and Human Development • The Center for Social Justice Education and LGBT Communities • The Kenneth Aidekman Family Foundation • The Rutgers Neurodiversity Task Force • The Seeing Eye, Inc. • University Online Education Services • Urban Education, Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences, Rutgers–Newark • Wheelchair Federation US • Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies • Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers University

    Program Partners

    The Boggs Center on Disability and Human Development • The Center for Urban Policy Research • Department of Kinesiology and Health • Move4More • Mason Gross School of the Arts, Dance Department • New Jersey Travel Independence Program at Rutgers University • Office of Disability Services • Rutgers Institute for Health, Health Care Policy and Aging Research • Rutgers Recreation, Student Affairs, Rutgers–New Brunswick • Rutgers University Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy • P3 Collaboratory • Rutgers Business School • Rutgers Center for Adult Autism Services • Rutgers University School of Social Work • Rutgers University Residence Life Student Support • Rutgers University Career Exploration and Success • Tyler Clementi Center • Urban Education • Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers University