Western Accessibility Awareness Month hits the ground running with the main event on the first day of the month. The annual awareness event is meant to promote, celebrate, and build awareness about disability and accessibility at WOU through a series of presentations.

The primary WAAM event on Feb. 1 will be Dr. Kathleen Bogart’s address “Look Beyond Face Value: The Psychology of Disability and Ableism.” Bogart is an assistant professor of Psychology and director of the Disability and Social Interaction Lab at Oregon State University.

Bogart specializes in facial paralysis and ableism, the prejudice towards disability. Her research program at OSU includes three facets: how people with facial movement disorders adapt, how others interpret their behavior and how to create positive interaction between people with and without facial movement disorders.

The presentation will be from noon to 1 p.m. Feb. 1 in the Willamette Room of the WUC. To learn more about Bogart, visit her program’s website.

Throughout the rest of February, WAAM will feature panels, sports activities and presentations. WOU students, faculty, staff and members of the community are invited to attend the events. Here is the full schedule:

• Kathleen Bogart: “Look Beyond Face Value: The Psychology of Disability and Ableism,” noon-1 p.m., Feb. 1 in the Willamette Room of WUC

• Seated volleyball: 2-3 p.m., Feb. 2 in the gym of the Courtney Center

• Rian Gayle: “Disability Awareness: Working with Persons with Disabilities,” noon-1 p.m., Feb. 8 in the Ochocho Room of WUC

• Indoor Hockey: 2-3 p.m., Feb. 8 in the gym at the Courtney Center

• WOU’s Students with Disability Panel Discussion: “My experience at WOU as a Person with a Disability,” noon-1 p.m., Feb. 14, in the Santiam Room of WUC
• Aislinn Addington, WOU’s Abby’s House: “Healthy Relationship,” noon-1 p.m., Feb. 21 in the Willamette Room of WUC
• Disability Art and Culture Project Group/Yulia Arakelyan Dance Video: “Waking the Green Sound’ 5-8 p.m. Feb. 24. Location to be announced.