Creating accessible college experiences
October 17, 2024
During the Spring 2024 semester, I represented CASDI (College of Arts and Sciences’s Diversity and Inclusion committee) as a participant in three webinars sponsored by the Greater Cincinnati Consortium for Colleges and Universities. The webinars were led by specialists from UC on neurodivergence and creating accessible college experiences for students with disabilities. I want to share some information I found very helpful and applicable to all of our students.
Our Jesuit tradition calls on us to support each student with cura personalis. Students with disabilities have usually been told they are not “college material,” which leads us to ask, who historically has college been for and how do our current systems continue to support some populations more than others? The follow-up questions for us include “who is Xavier for now?” and “who do we want it to be for in the future?”
In the workshop, “neurodivergence” referred to individuals who find it more challenging or take significantly more effort to perform or behave in line with societal expectations. For example, asking students to “partner up” for a quick activity can be much more challenging for a student who may also be adjusting to social-skill expectations. If the chairs in a classroom have been rearranged between classes, a student who relies on consistency may not be able to smoothly adapt to a new setup. If a peer is trying out a new perfume or body wash, a student who is neuro-diverse may be triggered by the smell and unable to ignore the new stimuli during your lecture. A class that is unexpectedly canceled or moved to an online environment may be a sudden change that a neuro-diverse student is less equipped to handle with ease. The workshop encouraged participants to think through one’s own classes, teaching styles, assignments, and interactions with students. You can ask yourself what might be challenging for neurodivergent learners in your classes right now, and how can you change that?
Remember that not every student has the same access to diagnostic testing, and some students have had negative experiences and may not want to “out” themselves with testing. Students with disabilities often face ableism disguised as benevolence. Students are often told they don’t have to do specific assignments and tests, which may come from good intentions, but instead isolates these students and views them through a deficit-based model of what they are lacking instead of what they offer. Instead of making decisions for students by eliminating assignments or expectations, we need to be creative and challenge the long-held tradition of giving the same type of assessment to every student. We should reconsider the goals of our courses and ask ourselves, “If I want my students to be critical thinkers, then what are different ways to evaluate that? Do students need to have the knowledge memorized or know where to find the knowledge? What are ways they can demonstrate this?”
One of CASDI's goals this year is to examine students’ current experiences with accommodations on campus and to help support CAS faculty in their work of making Xavier more accommodating and accessible to all students. This is not simply our legal responsibility, it’s at the heart of our mission; and part of that work starts with each faculty member understanding best practices toward these ends.
Lisa Hover, Department of Classics and Modern Languages
ASL Coordinator, Deaf Studies
