CUNY SPS Celebrates Important Observance With Spotlight on Upcoming Events and Inspiring Alumni
This April, the CUNY School of Professional Studies (CUNY SPS) celebrates CUNY Disability Awareness Month 2025, a yearly observance that aims to recognize disability culture and the City University of New York’s (CUNY) longstanding efforts to provide equal access and engagement for students with disabilities.
To mark the month, CUNY SPS is proud to host several disability awareness events and to showcase one of the School’s inspiring Disability Studies alums, Ryan Martin, who currently serves as CUNY’s Director of Inclusive and Adaptive Sports. Read more about our upcoming events, as well as Martin’s efforts to support disabled athletes across CUNY, below.
CUNY Disability Awareness Month Events
- Disability & Life Writing Conference
Dr. Andrew Marcum, academic director of the CUNY SPS online Disability Studies programs, will be moderating the roundtable Crip Craft and Kinships across the Disciplines at the Disability & Life Writing: A Conference at the Graduate Center on Friday, April 4 from 10:30-12:00 pm.
Learn more about the conference here.
Workplace Disability Discrimination Panel
The CUNY SPS Committee on Institutional Equity and Diversity (CIED) observes CUNY Disability Awareness Month with a panel discussion on Preventing Disability Discrimination in the Workplace on Tuesday, April 8, 2025, 12 noon to 1:30 pm.
Distinguished panelists include:
- Dr. Andrew Marcum, Ph.D., Academic Director, CUNY SPS Disability Studies Program
Dr. Sharon McLennon-Wier, Executive Director, Center for Independence of the Disabled of New York (CIDNY).
Dr. Wendy Strobel Gower, Thomas P. Golden Director of Disability-Inclusive Workplaces and the Director of the Northeast ADA Center at the K. Lisa Yang and Hock E. Tan Institute on Employment and Disability, Cornell University
Visit here to register and learn more.
Building Inclusive Campus Communities Workshop
Join the CIED for the workshop Building Inclusive Campus Communities: Applying Accessibility Principles for Lasting Impact on Wednesday, April 23, 2025, from 12 noon to 1 pm.
Presented by Amarna Williams, Accessible Communications Specialist, CUNY SPS Office of Student Disability Services
Please register here for the event.
Ryan Martin: Supporting Disabled Athletes at CUNY and Beyond
In the spotlight below, contributing writer Tanzina Vega showcases the life and career of CUNY SPS MA in Disability Studies alum Ryan Martin, who shares how his experiences as a professional wheelchair basketball player have inspired his efforts to lead a CUNY-wide disability sports program.
As a young boy, Ryan Martin, the Director of Inclusive and Adaptive Sports in the CUNY Athletics department (pictured left with Sen Tom Harkin), learned to take risks. Growing up with spina bifida and later becoming a double amputee above the knee, Martin, 45, said he’s grateful that his siblings challenged him, especially when it came to sports. “My brothers were able bodied and they didn't go easy on me,” Martin said. “They got me ready to play at the professional level, which is more cutthroat.” That tenacity has taken Martin from “a large multi-cultural, multi-ability, very diverse family” to a career as a disability activist, a professional wheelchair basketball player in Spain, and an alum of the CUNY SPS MA in Disability Studies (Class of ‘22).
When it began two decades ago, the CUNY SPS MA in Disability Studies was the first online program of its kind. Part of what attracted Martin to the program was the flexibility it offered to working adults by being online and asynchronous, allowing students to complete assignments in their own time. “I joked that I had not written a paper at my house the entire time,” Martin said. The program “met me where I was as a working adult.”
Along with its flexibility, the MA in Disability Studies program also helped Martin gain the advocacy skills and expertise needed for his career. “The program made me a better advocate for our student athletes by gaining a greater knowledge of the history of the plight of the disabled community,” Martin said. “Taking classes that focused specifically on disability in education, law, and media have improved my ability to navigate my current role at CUNY. I would HIGHLY recommend anyone in the disability advocacy space to truly study disability as a discipline. Considering the current landscape of our country, knowledge is power in this space for all advocates within the disabled community.”
While a master’s student, Martin also worked on bringing inclusive and adaptive sports to CUNY system-wide. His drive to make sports available to disabled students comes from his own experiences learning about wheelchair basketball as a young teen. “Playing basketball was the first place that I really felt that I stuck out for the right reasons, rather than sticking out because of my disability,” he said. “Sports saved my life.” Adaptive sports like wheelchair basketball help disabled kids learn about “being held accountable just like their non disabled peers,” rather than being “coddled” in the way many K-12 programs might, Martin said.
While Martin went on to play professional basketball in Europe for a decade, he acknowledges the path to success for other disabled athletes is difficult mainly because of a dearth of intercollegiate support. Unlike other college sports like basketball and football, “the NCAA does not recognize adaptive sports so you don't have universities trying to create programming. This is an example where targeted policies from the NCAA and/or their membership are needed to augment the number of programs nation-wide. If you look at the Office of Civil Rights (OCR), a legal argument could be made that failure to offer inclusive or adaptive sports program is a violation of the OCR rights of students with disabilities,” noted Martin.
Today the CUNY-wide program Martin oversees offers men’s and women’s wheelchair basketball. The program just completed their fourth season of existence and competed at the NWBA Intercollegiate National Championship hosted at the University of Illinois. The CUNY Men’s wheelchair basketball program finished 9th in the country. The CUNY Women’s team finished 6th in the country. CUNY student athletes within the program are consistently graduating from CUNY Associates programs on various campuses, with the inaugural group of student athletes completing their bachelor’s degrees this year or next.
For Martin, the goal of bringing adaptive sports to CUNY and other colleges isn’t just about who gets to play, but about providing the discipline and structure disabled athletes need to be successful after college. According to data from the U.S. Department of Labor, in February 2025 the unemployment rate for disabled Americans was 9.1 percent compared to 4.3 percent for Americans without a disability. “That only becomes more complicated with you add race, gender, all of that,” said Martin. “I want to be judged not just by how many games we win but by how many kids enter the workforce,” Martin said. “Are they able to get their degrees and enter that job market? The true key performance measures for us and our program are: retention of students with disabilities within their academic programs, graduation rates, and their longterm employment rates.”
This spring, Martin will be on the road looking to engage student athletes and promote the field of adaptive sports through his nonprofit The Ryan Martin Foundation. He’s wistful when he thinks about the past few decades of his career. Wheelchair basketball allowed his world to expand in ways he’d never imagined. “I was able to travel the world, play at high levels, and make some money doing it,” Martin said. “I never, ever envisioned that as a kid. It was just a place I felt safe.”
About the CUNY SPS Disability Studies Programs
Disability Studies is an emerging academic field that explores disability from multiple perspectives, including the social sciences, humanities, science, and the law. The CUNY School of Professional Studies (CUNY SPS) offers groundbreaking, fully accredited programs within Disability Studies. The School’s offerings include a BA, Advanced Certificate, and MA in Disability Studies, and an Advanced Certificate and MS in Disability Services in Higher Education.
About the CUNY School of Professional Studies
As New York's leading online school since 2006, the CUNY School of Professional Studies (CUNY SPS) offers the most online bachelor's and master's degree options at the City University of New York, and serves as the University's first undergraduate all-transfer college. With 26 degrees and numerous other non-degree and grant-funded workplace learning programs, CUNY SPS meets the needs of adults who wish to finish a bachelor's degree, progress from an associate's degree, earn a master's degree or certificate in a specialized field, and advance in the workplace or change careers. Consistently ranked highly by U.S. News & World Report for its online offerings, CUNY SPS has emerged as a nationwide leader in online education. The School's renowned and affordable online programs ensure that busy working adults may fulfill their educational goals on their own time and schedule.
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