Name: Gregory Hannah
Position: Assistant Director of the Office of Disability Services
HC: How did you get involved with the Office of Disability Services at Villanova?
GH: “How I got involved is actually a pretty interesting story. I was an academic support for a student in high school named Frankie Kineavy who has cerebral palsy. Frankie got into Villanova and I came to share with the current staff how life would be like with Frankie on campus. They asked me if I wanted to come here, not only to work with Frankie, but to potentially build a program to really socially involve students with disabilities throughout the whole campus. I turned the job down a few times. It took a while to really think about the idea of leaving my current job and taking a new job. As well as moving. At the time I had just gotten married and we had just bought our first home. This was a really big opportunity to potentially start a new career.”
HC: How did LEVEL begin?
GH: “So seven years ago I came here with Frankie and did everything I could to make sure he had a successful academic and social college experience. It was during that time that I met Ariana Meltzer-Bruhn. She was an able bodied student who had sustained an injury and had to be on crutches for a while. After crutching around campus and having to do some things differently, she realized there are some ways that there may be a disconnect between the abled-bodied population and disabled population because they don’t understand the way disabled students live or operate and are too afraid to engage in conversation. So LEVEL started by Ariana wanting to change that and I also wanted to build a more inclusive social community for college students with disabilities. That’s how LEVEL began.”
HC: What is the mission of LEVEL?
GH: “The mission of LEVEL is to truly change the way people see ability. We shouldn’t look at students who are living with a disability on Villanova’s campus as disabled, but as able-bodied members of the community who maybe do things a little differently. The opportunity to have exposure to a community you don’t feel you directly relate to allows you to get engaged and involved.”
HC: What do you hope LEVEL brings to campus?
GH: “What I hope LEVEL brings to campus, I am already seeing happen. These are things I hoped for when the club first began. This year alone we’ve taken over 60 members of LEVEL, both students with disabilities and their able-bodied peers, to a Phillies game, a Flyers game, and to Eastern State Penitenrary for the Haunted House. This past weekend we hosted our 3rd annual LEVEL retreat where over 60 students from LEVEL went to a retreat center in New Jersey and took part in rock climbing, zip lining, and all sorts of crazy high rope element contraptions that were both an opportunity to build a more cohesive group, but it was also fully accessible. There were blind students climbing 40 feet off the ground. There were harnesses taking our students in chairs up in the air. I hope to create an environment and atmosphere where people feel welcomed, accepted and where students can build confidence, promote advocacy, and raise awareness. We try to foster a great college experience for anyone who enters into LEVEL.”
HC: What is your favorite moment with LEVEL?
GH: “Some of my favorite moments are when the members of LEVEL put their effort into a task and then that task is carried out. For example, when the student works hard for months to plan casino night, there’s a lot of stress and pressure and things involved to make that work. But each year we open the doors and it’s bigger, more well known, and more people attend. Those funds directly relate to us paying for retreat. What I really enjoy is when the things we work hard for as a group pay off. They allow us to continue the process of promoting and building LEVEL. It also gives many of these students the ability to understand success, to work for success, to come face to face with adversity and pressure and get some real transferable skills. But also, the opportunity to go to places where we can all go together, laugh, have fun and get to know each other better.”
HC: What is one goal you have for LEVEL this year?
GH: “One goal I have for LEVEL this year, we’re already working towards. I always have a goal to try to make each year the best year. It sounds cliché, but I want to be able to say we looked at the year prior, looked at what was good and what was bad, and push for the next level. We want to be the best version of us by having more social events and having more people attend our meetings. We want to promote and raise the most funding this year for Casino Night so we have more opportunity to provide any kind of services or to help off-set cost of expenses for anything we may need to keep our club successful.”
HC: What are some upcoming events?
GH: “We hope to have more social events throughout the year. Just by going to meetings, people can see and hear about the things we’re doing and get involved. We hope to do something as a group before the holidays for Christmas. In the Spring, we have our Novability three day Disability Awareness Week. We have a free T-shirt give away, a blind dodgeball tournament and then we give out the Fr. Bill Atkinson Humanitarian Award. Last year we had Eric LeGrand accept the award in front of over 600 members of the Villanova community. We wrap up our year at the end of April with Casino Night.”
HC: Are there any connections between Her Campus and LEVEL?
GH: “LEVEL and Her Campus share similarities in the sense that there are times when everyone is looking to level their playing field in some way– whether it be because of gender, race, or ability. They are both groups that are trying to raise advocacy and awareness. Her Campus does this by creating confidence and empowerment for women. Both groups act as a platform to share stories. The core of LEVEL is to promote advocacy and create awareness, empowerment, and confidence for people living with disabilities. By being a part of that and witnessing it, you are getting involved in the movement. I can’t speak to women empowerment personally, but being the father of a two-year old daughter, I want her to have the best opportunities to showcase her talents. However, I know she will be met with adversity. I’m able to drawn on my experiences from LEVEL because I deal with people who have to deal with adversity everyday. By building up their confidence in LEVEL, we have seen higher grades, more friendships being formed, and more understanding of social issues. Both groups also create more opportunities to give other communities and populations the same type of platforms to share their stories with others.”
HC: Do you have any additional comments?
GH: “I am married to my beautiful wife Diana. We met in Adolescent Psychology class at Monmouth University our Junior year. I have two awesome children—my daughter Natalie who is 2 and my son Gregory who is 1. We have a German Shepherd named Jetty and I currently live in Marlton, New Jersey.”
To learn more about LEVEL check out this video!