2024 Focus Award Recipient - Faculty

Dr. Rama Cousik

Dr. Rama Cousik is a faculty member in the Department of Counseling and Graduate Education at Purdue Fort Wayne.  As an educator for over three decades, Dr. Cousik is known to be highly responsive to the awareness and support of individuals with disabilities and children with disabilities in educational environments. Dr. Cousik has made it a goal to encourage all teachers to avoid ableism and to identify and nurture strengths and potential in children with disabilities.

Dr. Cousik has focused efforts on an extensive project exploring undergraduate preservice teacher perspectives of individual learners’ needs in the general education curriculum.  Dr. Cousik is writing a book about disabilities including case studies that adopted a strength-based model of educational inclusion.  She has also conducted a needs assessment survey of all students on campus, collaborated with campus partners in a panel discussion, published articles, submitted a research poem, and conducted workshops and webinars related to disability inclusion and accessibility.