Shubhan Swamy

CESL Program: Boltwood

Major: Biology

Shubhan Swamy ‘28 is a biology student who currently lives in Dartmouth, Massachusetts but has lived all around the world from Canada to India to Mauritius. As an older brother to someone with developmental disabilities, Shubhan has always been interested in learning more about disabilities and disability justice, so when he came across Ellen Correa, Academic Director of the Boltwood Project, while she was tabling at an event for new students, he knew Boltwood was something he had to be part of. 

During his very first semester at UMass, Shubhan attended interview night for Boltwood and has been part of the program ever since. Working his way through SRVCLRNG 220, the introductory seminar for all Boltwood students, Shubhan eventually became a site supervisor in his sophomore year. His dedicated site, Prospect Meadow Farm, had paused its partnership with Boltwood for a while during COVID, so Shubhan and his co-supervisor had the pleasure of bringing it back to life. As a supervisor, Shubhan creates games and plans activities for students in his group and participants at the farm to engage in together. One activity he created is called “What’s in the Box?” where participants feel for objects inside of a container and guess what’s inside. Due to his success as a supervisor, Shubhan will now be a co-coordinator, which means taking on additional responsibilities of organizing seminars, finding speakers, managing logistics, and growing the organization as a whole. 

Reflecting on the seminar itself, Shubhan and other members of Boltwood have worked diligently to create a more active experience for participants. Each seminar hosts speakers, who either have disabilities themselves or are involved with disability advocacy and come to share their experiences with students. Before each seminar, students are given readings related to the topic, and Shubhan brainstorms prompts to be discussed. The learning that happens within these seminars is crucial for the site visits themselves, where students can occasionally come across tough situations. Shubhan recalls a recent speaker who was teaching students to respectfully address boundaries, a skill that can be practiced weekly while students visit their site.  

Outside of the seminar and site visits, students are asked to complete a weekly reflection about their experiences. Shubhan explains that the reflections are more than just describing the events of the past week’s site visit but ask students questions like, “How do you think you can improve your listening skills and talking skills and make sure everyone feels included?” 

Thinking about the future, Shubhan hopes to one day become a doctor. When asked how his experience in Boltwood will shape his career as a doctor, he began discussing the difference between the medical model of disability and the social model of disability. While the former tends to see disability as a problem to be fixed, the latter sees disability as a creation of society that makes it harder for other people to do things, a philosophy that Boltwood aligns itself with. Connecting these models to his future profession, Shubhan says, “I want to bring to my practice something more related to a social model of disability, trying to work with someone and not try to fix them.”