Quadriplegic lawyer Ken Kunken '72 inspires by example of dogged persistence
By Sarah Palmer
Cornell Chronicle Online, 10/09/2009

Ken Kunken '72 completed his bachelor's degree in engineering after severing his spinal cord in a sprint football accident when he was 20 years old and a student at Cornell. As a quadriplegic, he earned two master's degrees and a juris doctorate. Kunken spoke Oct. 5 to an audience of students and faculty in the ILR Conference Center about his time on the Hill and his post-Cornell career. "I knew that because of my physical limitations, in order to be successful I had to make the most of my mental abilities," Kunken said. At the time of his injury, physicians said Kunken would probably not survive, and that if he did live, he would spend his life in a nursing home. Although paralyzed from the shoulders down, Kunken refused to resign himself to such an existence. /full article/