Honoring Carol Gill, leader in disability studies

Carol Gill — DHD professor emerita, disability advocate, scholar and mentor — passed away on September 3 after a six-week illness.

A pioneer in disability studies, Gill dedicated her life and career to building up disability culture. Her scholarship and activism challenged the marginalization of people with disabilities and blazed a trail for celebrating disability identity.

“The elements of our culture include, certainly, our longstanding social oppression,” Gill said in a 1995 article for Independent Living Institute, “but also our emerging art and humor; our piecing together of our history; our evolving language and symbols; our remarkably unified worldview, beliefs and values and our strategies for surviving and thriving.”

Gill began her career in clinical psychology, conducting doctoral research on identity development. From there her professional interests turned toward minority group identity formation, focusing on people with disabilities, a community to which she belonged.

Her academic life was intertwined with UIC since its earliest days.

She earned her master’s and doctoral degrees in psychology from UIC in the 1970s and was appointed as an adjunct professor teaching medical humanities in the early 2000s. Gill was central to the development of the DHD department and its disability studies PhD program; she served as one of the department’s first hires and served as director of graduate studies from 2004 to 2011. She served as a mentor to scores of students, fellow activists, clinicians and professors.

“Carol was a visionary leader,” said Tamar Heller, distinguished professor in DHD and director of the Institute on Disability and Human Development. “Her work had, and is continuing to have, a strong influence, bridging the fields of health and humanities.”

Gill also co-founded and directed the Chicago Center for Disability Research, where she broke ground studying disability ethics and the intersections of disability with other identities, including race, gender and sexuality.

“Her research was centered on disability identity, self-esteem, women’s health, parenting and many other topics,” said Robin Jones, director of the Great Lakes ADA Center. “She played a key role in nurturing UIC’s DHD department into an internationally recognized leader in the field.”

Gill’s life and work foregrounded people with disabilities as leaders of culture, “dissidents who will not accept the traditional lines of aesthetics that society draws.” She demarcated the universal values of disability culture, even across its many intersections with other identities.

“There are people who touch our lives and leave us forever changed. Carol Gill was one of those people for me,” said Kristi Kirschner, clinical professor in medical education.” Carol introduced me to disability studies, a world that provided the missing link for me as a disability doctor. She was simply brilliant. She could also be challenging, always nuanced, probing deeper and unfailingly generous.”

Although DHD — and UIC as a whole — has lost a strong leader, advocate and friend, Gill’s work has created a legacy that people with disabilities can celebrate and carry forward.

“Yes, we have learned something important about life from being Disabled that makes us unique yet affirms our common humanity,” Gill said. “We refuse any longer to hide our differences. Rather, we will explore, develop and celebrate our distinctness and offer its lessons to the world.”