Employment First Is Focus of 2025 DREAM Symposium
“It’s powerful when we can bring together people who are passionate about shifting the needle when it comes to the employment rate for people with disabilities, said Ellice Switzer, a faculty member at the Yang-Tan Institute on Employment and Disability in Cornell’s ILR School, regarding the fourth annual New York State Disability Rights and Employment Awareness Month (DREAM) Symposium. The symposium took place in October.
Connecting New Yorkers with disabilities to inclusive employers was a key goal of the symposium. According to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, as of August 2025, only 22.8 percent of people over the age of 16 with a disability were employed, compared with 65.2 percent of people without a disability.
The Yang-Tan Institute (YTI) helped to plan and support the event, along with the New York State Office of the Chief Disability Officer and partners from other state agencies.
“It’s exciting for YTI and New York State to be able to bring together such a dynamic group of people to learn from each other about the important work that is being done,” Switzer said.
More than 400 people from around the country attended, including leaders in state government, policy experts, self-advocates, college students and professionals who work in the fields of disability and employment. The symposium offered a job fair and disability resource area, and an assistive technology fair, which featured a variety of companies, such as Microsoft.
Tania Morawiec is a California-based consultant who has worked for years in workforce development and vocational rehabilitation, including time as the Employment First manager at the Illinois Department of Human Services.
“What’s exciting about the DREAM Symposium is we’re looking at people sharing their lived experience, accomplishments and also challenges,” said Morawiec. “And, then you have kind of a brain trust and an opportunity to generate new ideas, overcome obstacles, brainstorm and bring in best practices from around the nation.”
New York is an Employment First state, which means it is working to increase competitive integrated employment for people with disabilities. Employment First is a national movement that prioritizes competitive integrated employment as the first and preferred option for people with disabilities who are being served by a state’s disability and public health systems.
Andy Sink, New York State’s Employment First Director, said “Employment First is about establishing employment, education and economic betterment as an expectation.”
The DREAM Symposium featured a keynote address from disabled comedian and speaker, Pamela Rae Schuller, as well as panels and multiple breakout sessions. YTI hosted four of those sessions, including topics on transition planning for students with disabilities and rights and responsibilities under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Other breakout sessions were focused on assistive technology, working while on public benefits, advancing employment opportunities for the deaf and leveraging accommodations in college to ensure both academic and workplace success.
Ryan Obland, the Associate Executive Director of the Helen Keller National Center for Deaf/Blind Youths and Adults, was a panelist for one of the breakouts. “I’m involved as a panelist here at the symposium specifically to have a peer-to-peer conversation talking about advocacy, leadership and to have a dialogue about the different issues that may be experienced by individuals with disabilities in the workplace,” Obland signed.
Another panelist was Lennyn Jacob, a Disability Accommodation Specialist at City University of New York (CUNY) Hostos Community College. She was part of a session that discussed the CUNY LEADS program, which stands for Linking Employment, Academics and Disabilities Services, to help students with disabilities be successful in school and in the transition to employment.
“We wanted to make sure that students coming and transitioning into colleges were aware that this particular program [LEADS] was available to them,” Jacob said. “I came specifically to share my experience with the program where I was able to get information and assistance.”
The fifth annual DREAM Symposium is scheduled for October 14-15, 2026.
YTI began supporting the DREAM Symposium in 2024.
About the Yang-Tan Institute
Providing practical information to policymakers, employers, educators and others who assist people with disabilities is a core focus for the Yang-Tan Institute on Employment and Disability, which is part of Cornell’s ILR School. The institute’s mission is to advance knowledge, policies and practices that enhance equal opportunities for all people with disabilities. Its research, training and technical resources expand knowledge about disability inclusion, leading to positive change.
The institute leads many grant-funded projects, including Employer Attitudes and Practices toward Hiring Justice-Impacted Individuals with Disabilities and the Northeast ADA Center. The institute also receives funding via a New York state legislative appropriation to assist with a variety of disability-related initiatives, and it offers a variety of professional education opportunities.
