Indiana University Bloomington student Paige Moore gives a cooking demonstration at Forest Manor Health Center in Indianapolis on July 12, 2023. Photo by Chris Meyer, Indiana University.
IUPUI junior Michael Hardin is visually impaired, a disability that national data shows is a major barrier to employment. But a partnership between Indiana University and the Gregory S. Fehribach Center is connecting Hardin and other IU students with disabilities to job opportunities and providing work experience through a summer internship program.
Located at Eskenazi Health in Indianapolis, the Fehribach Center helps Indiana college students with disabilities build skills and confidence through full-time, paid internships with leading companies, including Eli Lilly, Cummins, Eskenazi Health and the Indiana Pacers, making them more competitive for full-time employment after graduation.
Michael Hardin is an IUPUI student and intern in the Gregory S. Fehribach Center’s Eskenazi Health Program. Photo by Liz Kaye, Indiana University IU has had a close relationship with the Fehribach Center for five years, with students from IU Bloomington, IUPUI, IU East and IU South Bend completing internships. IUPUI and IU Bloomington, which will transition to IU Indianapolis, were the most active campuses, with 22 IUPUI students completing 49 internships, including five student interns for summer 2023. Nineteen IU Bloomington students completed 32 internships, with 11 student interns for summer 2023, the most ever.
Hardin has interned at Eskenazi Health Center of Hope for the past two summers, working as a victim advocate to connect victims of domestic violence and sexual assault to critical resources. She said she is grateful for IU’s partnership with the Fehribach Center and for being able to participate in the internship program so early in her college career.
“This partnership was helpful for me because it gave me the opportunity to gain experience in a variety of ways and strengthen transferable skills,” Hardin said, “so that when I do get into my field, I’ll have plenty of experience.”
Overcoming Barriers
The Felibach Center began as an internship program for Ball State University students in the early 2000s. Indianapolis attorney Greg Felibach, a national leader in accessible design, was concerned that young people with disabilities were too often represented in leadership positions. Felibach, who also served on the board of directors of Marion County Health and Hospital Corporation, the parent organization of Ball State University and Eskenazi, conceived the internship program with Larry Markle, then director of Ball State’s disability programs. Since then, the program has evolved to include students with hearing, vision and mobility impairments at universities across the state.
“I want to see incredibly talented, incredibly bright college students and graduates with disabilities get the experiences they need to be really strong candidates for equitable employment after they graduate,” said Markle, who now serves as director of the Fehribach Center.
National data backs up the need for the Fehribach Center and its internship program: According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, only 35.1% of people with disabilities between the ages of 16 and 64 were employed in 2021, compared with 76.5% of people without disabilities. Even after earning a college degree, people with disabilities earn 38% less than their non-disabled peers, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Larry Markle, director of the Gregory S. Fehrbach Center at Eskenazi Health, photo by Liz Kaye of Indiana University. “Unfortunately, there are still many stereotypes and misconceptions the public holds about people with disabilities, and the perception that people with disabilities cannot do certain jobs,” Markle said.
Students are placed in fields related to their majors and are provided with housing and transportation assistance as needed. The Fehribach Center works with universities to solicit applications and negotiates with employers about accommodations that interns will need to complete their work.
Markle said 39 employers have accepted interns. Christia Hicks, Eskenazi Health’s director of human resources, said the program aligns with Eskenazi’s values of advocating and caring for vulnerable populations and is a good way to hire talent. Eskenazi Health hired interns from Indiana University Bloomington, Indiana University Indiana Associates, Indiana University East and Indiana University South Bend.
The success of the eight-week internship program is apparent in the numbers: 93% of interns have found full-time employment, resumed their undergraduate studies, or gone on to graduate school, Markle added.
“The Fehribach Center’s partnership with IU is a wonderful example of two great organizations working together to remove barriers and provide opportunities for talented college students with physical disabilities,” Hicks said. “It has been my privilege to get to know several of the IU students participating in the Fehribach Center’s programs, and I have been extremely impressed with each and every one of them.”
Watch the audio-described video, “Providing Opportunities for Students with Disabilities.”
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Paige Moore, a senior at Indiana University Bloomington majoring in neuroscience and minoring in psychology, wants to become a neuroscientist and neuropsychologist, but for many years, her hearing loss has made it difficult for her to secure part-time work.
Moore is completely deaf in her right ear and has moderate to severe hearing loss in her left ear, and although she is good at reading lips, she sometimes needs the help of an interpreter at work.
Moore thought the internship program was a perfect fit because the Fehribach Center works with employers to accommodate students’ obstacles and ease their burden. As a self-supporting student, Moore appreciates that the internship is paid so she doesn’t have to choose between building her resume and finding a job to pay the bills.
“It’s nice to know that they are supporting other students who have disabilities like me and finding ways to help us open up new possibilities and have more opportunities,” Moore said.
Paige Moore, a student at Indiana University Bloomington. Photo by Chris Meyer, Indiana University. She completed three internships through the Fehribach Program. Through the Eskenazi Health Aging Brain Care Program, Moore worked with patients with Alzheimer’s and dementia and supervised physicians in the clinic. She then did an internship at IU Health Methodist Hospital, where she conducted research on Alzheimer’s and dementia.
For her third internship, Moore told Markle she was interested in how diet affects the nervous system and mental illness, which could lead to a career as a neuropsychologist, so over the summer she interned in the Nutrition and Lifestyle Wellness department at Eskenazi Health.
Moore worked with a nutritionist and lifestyle wellness coach to learn more about diet, worked on projects such as analyzing data and using it to spot trends, helped create a research poster for Eskenazi’s nutritional incentive program, accompanied her to clinical duties in the department and facilitated cooking classes and education groups for people working to manage their diabetes.
“This internship program allowed me to intern in a variety of different places, which helped me find a hobby that aligned with my interests,” Moore said.
The right tools
Hardin, a social work student at IUPUI, said the Center of Hope has been very accommodating to her disability. She works remotely from her home in Indianapolis and uses a computer screen reader to read what’s on her screen.
Hardin also uses a memorized assistive keyboard, whose keys have multiple functions and allow him to search by word, letter, heading or link, scroll through the internet to help clients find resources or contact information, and, if necessary, use the recorder to quickly record something and play it back before typing the information into the document.
The Fehribach Center’s program also made it much easier to secure internships, although Hardin said noisy job fairs, where students must walk between employers’ booths, can be anxiety-inducing for people who are blind.
group work
When the Fehribach Center began expanding its reach to universities across the state, Indiana University was one of the first to reach out, Markle said.
“I think IU has modeled the Fehribach Center as a way of how the relationship between disability services and career services should work,” Markle said, “and they bring us in every fall to speak to students with disabilities.”
IUPUI’s Accessible Education Services will be holding an open house to inform students about the internship program, and Kevin McCracken, director of Accessible Education Services, said the Fehribach program has been a big benefit.
“It would be hard to think of a better internship program than the one at the Fehribach Center,” he says. “It’s focused on students with disabilities, and it’s a full-time, paid internship, which is fantastic.”
At IU Bloomington, staff from the Career Development Center and Accessible Education Services work together to educate students with disabilities about internship programs.
“The more experience you have, the more success you’ll have after you graduate, and that’s what we want for our students,” said Rachel Garber, associate director of the Career Development Center.
Drew Bogenschutz, director of accessible education services at Indiana University Bloomington, said he has been sending out emails to students with disabilities to generate interest. Both offices hold open houses each fall to connect interested students with Fehribach Center leaders for more information.
Garber said applications for the program are due by the end of January, and the center will also host drop-in sessions for students who want to polish their resumes or gather application materials.
Bogenschutz said the internship program is a good way to give students real-world experience while providing support.
“We think the internship program is great for the students and it’s great for the community,” Bogenschutz said. “It’s a win-win situation.”