If you’ve ever felt uninspired, in need of a laugh, or even some useful advice, I would recommend saying, “Hi!” to Abigail Negley. As HerCampus DU’s profile pick this week, Abigail opens up about her work with The Arc of Colorado, her love of southern cooking, and a few recommendations for the future of DU.
A native Coloradan from Colorado Springs, Abigail comes from a big, cooky family: two older sisters, a niece and nephew, loving parents, as well as basically everyone else who happened to stop by for dinner. Growing up in her mom’s record shops, she learned the valuable skill of conversation, something she openly admits lead to her greatest weakness of being a bit of a Chatty Kathy. Although, she’s actually got important things to say so, in retrospect, perhaps it was the perfect platform for her college major of choice: Socio-Legal Studies and French. As she explained to me with hands flying and a huge smile on her face, she was raised with the freedom and encouragement to be anyone she wanted to be and to advocate for those who lacked the ability to speak for themselves. Her work over the past few years with The Arc of Colorado- an organization providing help and education for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities- has allowed her to see the realities of the lives of challenges individuals and the prejudices and discrimination they feel on a daily basis. This includes the shocking reality that many people with disabilities, especially young teens with disorders like downs syndrome or even just kids in wheelchairs, are barred from events like prom, the idea being that they may not be able to control themselves. In response, Abigail has worked (among other things) to help bring donated prom dresses to kids like these, so they might experience prom too.
The advocacy doesn’t stop there however; Abigail hopes to chase a career working for the ACLU and continue to pursue all avenues of civil rights law. “It’s not sexy,” she admits. “There’s no celebrity to it, and people don’t want to talk about it, but it’s because of people’s ignorance that there’s so much corruption in the legal system.” When asked about her thoughts of the political atmosphere today, she responded in the way many of us would, with a sigh of exasperation. “There’s a lot of ego, and general feelings of separation,”; there’d be a lot less disconnect if “everybody just chilled out, and tried to have an educated conversation every once in a while.” We can hope, can’t we? And in terms of her opinion of DU, her home for the past two years? She wishes there were more diversity here too; perhaps more consideration for the needs of all students of all backgrounds.
Yet, while she’s not battling our complicated legal system through volunteerism or in her classes, Abigail can be found enjoying the sweeter things in life like some good ol’ southern cooking with dry rub for days. This link to her family down south remains strong. So does her love for her dogs up north: two Jack Russell terriers, and her old English bulldog, Gatsby who is without a doubt, “The dankest of them all.” You can find Abigail being a self-professed nerd at the Denver Natural History Museum, or perhaps chilling with friends or drooling over old classic movies. But where ever she is, just look for the talking hands of someone on a mission, and there she’ll be.
Visit the ARC of Colorado here: http://www.thearcofco.org/