{"id":12460,"date":"2012-04-20T13:19:13","date_gmt":"2012-04-20T17:19:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/?p=12460"},"modified":"2021-09-10T13:50:22","modified_gmt":"2021-09-10T17:50:22","slug":"willing-and-able-wright-states-zach-holler","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/2012\/04\/20\/willing-and-able-wright-states-zach-holler\/","title":{"rendered":"Willing and able: Wright State\u2019s Zach Holler"},"content":{"rendered":"
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After arriving at Wright State, Holler decided to use his experience as a person with a disability to shoot for a degree in rehabilitation. After his third year at Wright State, he moved from home into the dorms, a huge step for someone with his disability.<\/p><\/div>\n

He carries a 3.78 grade point average while holding a part-time job. He interned with a federal disabilities agency in Washington, D.C., conducting research for the commissioner. He is president of a campus group striving to unify students and students with disabilities.<\/p>\n

And Wright State senior Zach Holler does it all from a wheelchair, where he deals with a genetic condition that has left him with greatly limited mobility and severely visually and hearing impaired.<\/p>\n

The 23-year-old Holler says he enrolled at Wright State thinking he would just take a few classes and then look for a job. Today, he\u2019s scheduled to graduate in June with a degree in rehabilitation.<\/p>\n

\u201cI met more and more people here, with and without disabilities, and I realized what opportunities were really available to me,\u201d Holler said. \u201cSo it\u2019s really been progressive, starting with almost nothing–starting from scratch–and it\u2019s built up to a lot of hope for a good career.\u201d<\/p>\n

Holler said he initially wanted to attend college out of state, far from his home in the western Ohio town of Clayton. A visit to Wright State and a meeting with Jeffrey Vernooy, director of the Office of Disability Services, changed his mind.<\/p>\n

Vernooy said he was impressed with Holler\u2019s self-awareness and skills.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you sit down and understand his limitations in terms of his ability to see and hear, it\u2019s pretty darn amazing how he traverses an area that we don\u2019t think he may be able to do,\u201d Vernooy said.<\/p>\n

After arriving at Wright State, Holler decided to use his experience as a person with a disability to shoot for a degree in rehabilitation. After his third year at Wright State, he moved from home into the dorms, a huge step for someone with his disability.<\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/a>

Holler also holds down a part-time job with the Access Center for Independent Living, a Dayton non-profit organization that provides training, peer support and equipment designed to help people with disabilities transition from institutional settings to community living.<\/p><\/div>\n

Holler has always been a star in the classroom. His 3.78 grade point average at Wright State followed a 3.932 GPA in high school. His academic strategy is to maintain a proper balance of study time, sleeping, personal care and friends-and-family time.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat helps me minimize my stress and increase confidence,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Last summer, Holler landed an 11-week internship in Washington, D.C., with the Administration on Developmental Disabilities in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. He assisted the commissioner on Medicaid-related research projects designed to identify areas of improvement for people with disabilities.<\/p>\n

Since last fall, Holler has been busy as president of Abilities United, a social student organization at Wright State designed to bring together students with and without disabilities to promote awareness of advocacy and develop strategies for advocating for oneself.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re trying to bring people of all abilities together in one group to break down comfort barriers,\u201d said Holler. \u201cDisability is a natural part of human experience; every one of us will experience disability of some kind at some point in life.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Holler said many people without disabilities tend to be uncomfortable with people who have disabilities because they don\u2019t know how to approach them or are afraid they will inadvertently say something to offend them.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s what we\u2019re trying to break down,\u201d Holler said. \u201cWe want people to come together and realize that we are more similar than different.\u201d<\/p>\n

Holler\u2019s sister, Mallory, is also a Wright State student and, like her brother, has severe disabilities. Their father, Greg, says he and his wife, Kim, encourage their children just to be themselves.<\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/a>

The 23-year-old Holler says he enrolled at Wright State thinking he would just take a few classes and then look for a job. Today, he\u2019s scheduled to graduate in June with a degree in rehabilitation.<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cFor those people who care enough to spend just a short amount of time to get to know who they are and what they bring to the table,\u201d he said, \u201cit doesn\u2019t take long for people to start to seeing the neurons are connected and there is some really good stuff going on there.\u201d<\/p>\n

The sandy-haired Zach Holler uses interpreters to help him communicate. But his infectious smile needs no interpretation.<\/p>\n

Vernooy said Holler connects with fellow students by using his outstanding people skills and by not being afraid to reach out.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo often, people with that kind of disability sometimes end up hunkering down and pulling their walls in closer to them so they feel comfortable,\u201d Vernooy said. \u201cZach doesn\u2019t do that. Zach is always willing to try something new.\u201d<\/p>\n

Holler also holds down a part-time job with the Access Center for Independent Living, a Dayton non-profit organization that provides training, peer support and equipment designed to help people with disabilities transition from institutional settings to community living.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope to see myself running my own business or starting a non-profit,\u201d Holler said of his post-graduation plans. \u201cI\u2019ve thought about faith-based ministry for people with special needs, but that\u2019s in the long term.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vernooy believes that Holler is destined for big things.<\/p>\n

\u201cI sense that he definitely is going to be a leader one day,\u201d Vernooy said. \u201cHe\u2019s already started that process on this campus.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

He carries a 3.78 grade point average while holding a part-time job. He interned with a federal disabilities agency in Washington, D.C., conducting research… Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":12470,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[722,729,2034,725,715,719,720],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academics","category-around-campus","category-career-services","category-home-news-sidebar","category-news","category-special-categories","category-video"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12460"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12460\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":112031,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12460\/revisions\/112031"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}