7.1: “I’m Unlearning!” Applying Reflexivity to Higher Education Disability Services as a Tool for Supporting Students with Intersectional Identities
Morgan Strimel, George Mason University
Grace Francis, George Mason University
Jodi Duke, George Mason University
Although the higher education disability services field requires considerable use of professional judgment to make accommodation-related decisions, there is a lack of guidance on how to carry this out in day-to-day interactions with students. When drawing on personal and professional experiences, disability services professionals are directly guided by their own positionality, which is their collective identities and experiences, and therefore - for better or for worse - their biases as they determine accommodations for students with disabilities. To better understand these influencing identities and the role of positionality in the disability services profession, this presentation will share themes that emerged from thirteen semi-structured interviews with disability services professionals that focused on their perceptions of the relationship between their positionality and their work. Further, we will invite attendees to examine their own positionalities through an interactive activity where they will pinpoint influential aspects of their identities. This presentation will conclude with a large group discussion focused on the implications for practitioners in regard to seeing our own positionalities and their role in our work. In addition to discussing implications for practice with attendees, the presenters will guide the conversation around reflexivity, or consciously examining when and where our positionalities may influence our choices and interactions as disability services professionals.
7.2: A Guiding Framework for Decision Making: A Three-Step Process for Simple to Complex Situations
Emily Helft, Landmark CollegePaul Harwell, Dartmouth College
This presentation covers a three-step framework to decision making that is applicable to all DS professionals, from seasoned to new-to-the-field. It is designed to aid in a consistent process around request outcomes, whether the answer is a “yes” or a “no,” and whether the scenarios are simple or complex. It will include an overview of the foundations behind the approach, important angles to consider prior to use, description of the framework, and a brief overview of a values/goals matrix to further guide decision outcomes. While DS work is likely never to be fully black-and-white, this approach is designed to support DS professionals that prefer consistent and structured approaches to their work around accommodation decisions. Time will be reserved at the end for an attendee-provided scenario.
7.3: Becoming Disabled Leaders on Campus: How Disabled Students Learn Leadership Through The Work of Disabled Student Services Practitioners
Spencer Scruggs (ORCID iD), Trinity University
Enjie Hall, University of Toledo
Leadership learning can be described as the educational experiences of students in preparing them to be agents of social change during and after their time in college. Viewing leadership learning experiences from a socially constructed lens, we can understand that factors such as identity-formation, worldviews, and dominant and marginalized perspectives on what leadership means can all impact how students engage with leadership learning opportunities on their campuses, especially for disabled students. Reframing the work of a disability office as that of leadership education, by means of accommodation provision and ensuring access, practitioners become facilitators for possible leadership learning experiences for disabled students that empower the students to engage with the world and become agents of social change with their whole selves. This session explores the connection between leadership education and a disability office, specifically the role practitioners play in facilitating and supporting critical leadership learning experiences for disabled students.
7.4: Accessibility Services Case Management Model: Providing a Student-Centered, Goal-Oriented Process for Students with Disabilities
Beverly Neu Menassa, Dallas College
Keysha McCloud, Dallas College
Grenna Rollings, Dallas College
Our community college’s Accessibility Services Team watched throughout 2020 as our students with disabilities stopped out at a troublesome rate. We wondered, “How can we encourage and support our students when they return to campus?” We underwent a total reorganization during 2020-2021, which presented an opportunity for Student Services to change the landscape of support services for students in higher education. The Accessibility Services Leadership Team created a new service model: accommodation coordination housed within an overall case management philosophy of service. The presenters will provide an overview of how they are integrating Accessibility Services and case management strategies. They will engage the participants with case studies and encourage attendees to reflect on how they, too, can create a similar case management model at their institutions.
7.5: Building Inclusive Experiences for Deaf Students: Strategies for Strengthening Your College’s Capacity
Lauren "Lore" Kinast, National Deaf Center on Postsecondary Outcomes
In a survey conducted by the National Deaf Center on Postsecondary Outcomes, a deaf student described their experience as “There has been no institutional interest in learning how to become more deaf-friendly. The attitude is one of begrudging tolerance at best.” Accommodations alone do not provide deaf students equitable access to the full college experience. Deaf students often have to navigate complex policies, procedures, and systemic structures to participate in all facets of college life. This session will focus on how to build an accessible and inclusive campus environment that does not require deaf students having to constantly assimilate into the campus culture with just accommodations. Participants will be provided with strategies to implement change on college campuses that cultivate accessibility and inclusion for diverse deaf people.
CANCELLED - REPLACEMENT TBD - 7.6: Beyond Guidance: Practical Application of the 2012 AHEAD Documentation Recommendations
Aaron Pierson, Minneapolis Community and Technical College
Ten years on, the 2012 AHEAD document Supporting Accommodations Requests: Guidance on Documentation Practice is still mysterious to a lot of practitioners. We will demystify the document and show how it guided the changes made at Minneapolis Community and Technical College since 2017. Participants will be shown the criteria used for making the changes, the policy revisions, and the nuts and bolts of implementation. Case studies will allow participants to think though how they would approach accommodations decisions using student narrative as a primary source. Finally, we will see what the data have shown, and the types of pushback we received on the changes
7.7: Shaping the Future of Autistic Student Engagement
John Caldora, University of Kentucky
Autism remains a critical topic for disability services professionals. This session offers a comprehensive overview of the Autism Spectrum, beginning with an introduction to Autism from the pathology paradigm, including prevalence, symptoms, and current, best practice, intervention strategies for students in higher education, in both individual and group settings. We will then approach autism from the paradigm of Neurodiversity, including developing self-advocacy skills, the history and politics of the neurodiversity movement, and discrimination issues. Throughout the session, the presenter will offer insights from his own challenges and experiences as a member of the Autism Spectrum and a disability services professional responsible for coordinating neurodivergent services at a large public institution.
7.8: Doing the Work: Building Explicit Anti-Racism into the Practices of Your Disability Services Office
Jen Dugger Spalding, Portland State University
Stacie Taniguchi, Portland State University
The nationwide reckoning with white supremacy and racism in this country, brought about by the pandemic and murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmad Arbery has altered the course of many colleges and universities. However, we in Disability Services must reassess whether and how we have evolved to meet this ever-present need, integrating anti-racist practices into our work and centering the experiences of Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) students with disabilities. The presenters will focus on the process that the Disability Resource Center at our university has gone through to begin and the specific work that has been done thus far. As James Baldwin was famously quoted, “Not everything that is faced can be changed but nothing can be changed until it is faced” and it is (beyond) the time that we in Disability Services face our ethical responsibilities to the wellbeing and retention of our students of color.
7.9: Models for Partnership: Occupational Therapy and Disability Resources
This session will consist of two presentations related to campus OT and disability work
a. Occupational Therapy Service to Support Unique Student Needs
Karen Keptner, Cleveland State University
Occupational therapy is a related service in both primary and secondary schools. However, as students progress to post-secondary studies the presence of occupational therapy is less prevalent as ‘disability’ takes on new meaning. As a faculty member who has designed an occupational therapy service on campus, I can personally attest to the value of OT within the student support team. Since its inception, I get more and more outreach from different departments on campus – “how do we get OT for our students?” This presentation will provide student support staff and administrators with information about occupational therapy, services that can be provided, and help them conceptualize what an OT can do on their campus. A case study will explore the development of an occupational therapy service at Cleveland State University. This service model includes credit-bearing courses designed and taught by occupational therapy faculty and practitioners, occupational therapy student service provision through practicum, and one-time workshops during key times of the semester.
b. An Integrated Support Model Utilizing a Credit-Bearing Skill Building Course
Karen Keptner, Cleveland State University
Grace Clifford, UCLA
institutions of higher education across the country have seen an increased need for on-campus case management services to support students in crisis. Cleveland State University used an innovative method to provide enhanced, holistic support for the most at-risk students, after realizing that meeting with students one-on-one through campus care management and/or disability services had become unsustainable. Through a collaboration with the occupational therapy program on campus, a credit-bearing course was designed based on occupational science and using the principles of occupational therapy. This session will provide the rationale for the course, the positive student outcomes tracked thus far, and details about the collaborations on campus that made this possible. In addition, we will provide details about the course so that it can be replicated by other institutions, such as content and grading system.
7.10: Research Briefs: Effective Student Supports
This session consists of several research briefs centered on the topic of student supports:
a. Triangulating Disability Staff, Faculty and Student Perceptions of Disability Services: Survey Findings and Recommendations
Alan Safer, California State University Long Beach
Lesley Farmer (ORCID iD), California State University Long Beach
As disability support centers (DSC) try to provide high quality service, data analytics seldom focuses on different stakeholders' perceptions -- and triangulating their responses -- as a means to make improvements. To this end, California State University Long Beach surveyed students who receive DCS services, faculty who provide accommodations to their students, and DSC staff about their experiences with DSC. Quantitative and qualitative data analytics were applied to reveal trends. The survey findings provided valuable insights for action: establishing a faculty-student-staff liaison committee and providing more training and resources for faculty, staff, and students. The session will conclude with recommendations to optimize survey development and administration, analysis, recommendations, and actionable planning and targeted interventions.
b. Becoming Self-Determined: Supporting College Students in Improving Their Self-Determination Skill
Patricia Violi, University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Students with disabilities experience challenges in the transition from high school to college at higher rates than their non-disabled peers. They often enter colleges and universities across the country with low self-advocacy skills related to planning and organizing their daily lives on campus, which has led faculty and staff to recognize the need for more support services to help these students persist in their new environments. The Disability Office is often contacted to manage an issue that may be out of its scope. This presentation will discuss dissertation research that is aimed to support college students with disabilities in improving their self-determination skills to improve outcomes on campus and in their lives.
c. Trauma-Informed Accessibility Services for College Students with PTSD: Notes from a Focus Group Study
Amy Banko, Rutgers University
Brittany Stone, Rutgers University
PTSD in college students remains either underdiagnosed or misdiagnosed, resulting in inadequate or ineffective treatment and support services, which sometimes inadvertently lead to the re-traumatization of students. Without routine assessment and supplemental services targeted to address their unique needs, trauma can impact college students, leading to lifelong implications including lower rates of educational attainment, poorer vocational outcomes, and diminished Social Determinants of Health. Furthermore, the prevalence of trauma, such as race-based traumatic stress (RBTS), can disproportionately impact BIPOC students and their educational attainment. This session will explore key findings from a phenomenological qualitative study exploring the impact of trauma and PTSD on postsecondary students’ academic success. Functional academic implications of trauma, the corresponding barriers/ challenges, as well as student support strategies will be explored. Additionally, recommendations for the provision of trauma-informed Accessibility Services will be reviewed.
d. Perceptions of Anxiety and Speaking in Class Among Art and Design Students
Jenna Bradley, Moore College of Art and Design
Participating in class, often measured by speaking in class discussion, poses challenges for students who experience anxiety, particularly those students with social anxiety disorders. Assessing student work without inducing anxiety has posed a particular challenge in art and design classes, in which assessment primarily takes the forms of group critiques and presentations, rather than written tests and papers. This presentation aims to help college faculty and staff members better support art and design students who struggle with anxiety around speaking in class. This research study surveys art and design students to elicit their experiences of anxiety and perceptions of speaking in classroom settings in their own words. The qualitative data discussed in this presentation will allow audience members to compare their assumptions regarding art and design students’ anxiety about speaking in class to the experiences and perceptions of real students. The presentation will facilitate these comparisons by live polling the audience, then comparing the data sets. The audience will better understand the challenges facing art and design students regarding anxiety about speaking in class and be better prepared to support these students.
7.11: How to Design and Teach a Grant Writing Course for Students and Future Leaders in Higher Education Accessibility Positions
Cassandra Evans, CUNY School of Professional Studies
We know that delivering accessibility and accommodations are central to the work of disability offices, but how about finding money? An equitable, essential, and excellent skill for disability professionals is the ability to seek and secure more funding for myriad projects at Offices of Accessibility. This workshop highlights how to design and deliver a “grant writing for higher education programs” course on your campus. CUNY School of Professional Studies will showcase the grant writing course developed for their online Masters degree programs in Disability Services in Higher Education and Disability Studies. The course continues to have 100% enrollment and has grown to be one of the most popular elective courses in their programs. Attendees to this session will learn how to design a grant writing course, how to seek approval from curriculum committees and administrators, and how to run the course in a “scaffolded” manner. The program will also showcase the use of Blackboard Ally in determining whether the online LMS meets accessibility standards. This content is applicable for teaching face-to-face and online courses.
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