When he was in middle school, Class of 2022 Psychology major Nickon Razi didn’t want to be noticed.
“I wore a hoodie,” Razi said. “I had so much anxiety and my grades were having problems.”
He learned the cause of his anxiety had a name: obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). Razi switched to a middle school that offered him accommodations for his disability and his life turned around.
He continued to thrive when he entered CSU Channel Islands (CSUCI) with accommodations offered by the Disability Accommodations & and Support Services (DASS).
Now Razi makes top grades and is president of the CSU Channel Islands chapter of the Delta Alpha Pi International Honor Society (DAPi), an organization founded to recognize high-achieving college and university students with disabilities.
“The biggest problem I’ve learned other people like me face is that because of our disabilities—we like to call them superpowers at DAPi—we can do things so-called ‘regular folk’ can do, we just do things differently,” Razi said. “We are different, but not in the sense that we’re ‘less than.’ With DAPi, we feel like we’re not alone anymore.”
April marks CSUCI’s Eta Zeta chapter of Delta Alpha Pi (DAPi)’s first year on campus and the chapter can boast a robust attendance record and involved members.
At first, the 34-member chapter met weekly via Zoom, but has now switched to hybrid meetings. DAPi is getting ready to initiate 14 new members in May, when graduating DAPi scholars will accept their diplomas in full academic regalia, including pins and honor cords.
Razi, who grew up in Thousand Oaks, started a DAPi chapter during the two years he attended Moorpark College after high school. When he entered CSUCI as a transfer student in 2020, he wanted to start a chapter here, and learned Director of DASS Michelle Resnick wanted to do the same thing.
So with Resnick and Professor of Education and Political Science Tiina Itkonen, Ph.D. as co-advisors, the Eta Zeta DAPi chapter formally opened in April of 2021 with a candlelight ceremony attended by President Richard Yao, Provost Mitch Avila and Interim Vice President of Student Affairs Toni DeBoni.
“We had been working hard to spread the word about the disability civil rights movement and to refocus the lens of the campus culture’s view of disability from a deficit model to one of equity and inclusion,” Resnick said. “One of the wonderful ways of doing this is to showcase the scholars. The Delta Alpha Pi Honor Society gives students with disabilities the opportunity to be heard on campus. Here, we embrace our entire identity and so should everybody else.”
As a lifelong advocate of those with accommodation needs, Itkonen said she was honored to support the new honor society.
“Students with disabilities are a diverse group,” Itkonen said. “Some disabilities are visible and some are invisible. The important thing to show is that students with disabilities are also honor students. Students who happen to have disabilities—that’s just one marker of who they are. And this organization will be really important in their post-graduation trajectory to have these national connections.”
Razi, who is also president of two other campus clubs and vice president of a fourth, plans to apply to law school after he graduates, and intends to stay connected with DAPi throughout his professional life.
When Itknonen thinks of the students in DAPi, she is reminded of a Swedish saying her mother had back in Itkonen’s native Finland: “Låt alla blommor blomma.
Or: “Let all the flowers bloom.”