Students With Disabilities - Your College's Secret Weapon

As a Disability/Student Services Coordinator with a few weeks to go before the next semester starts, you are probably beginning to worry about receiving the updated schedules and requirements for your students with disabilities, so that you can make the necessary accommodations for them.

Weeks of badgering have not managed to budge the inertia of your students, which will most likely result in them letting you know a few hours before a class that they require a live transcriber or CART services, for example.

Many universities look at the process of providing their disabled students with accommodations as a burden, a task which requires significant resources including time and funds and a great deal of planning...This is not to say that they don’t willingly provide the accommodations! But evidence of this attitude, combined with the struggle for funding can be seen across the board and most notably, in the provision of transcription or captioning services to hard of hearing and deaf students, we have all seen direct examples of large institutions refusing to caption or transcribe content (and being sued for it) or providing these services on demand only.

As a representative of a vendor in the space, I recently spoke to a university who shared with me that their Director of Disability Services was prepared to “wait to be sued” before looking at solutions for their students! I think that we all know the dangers of this approach (not only regarding the lawsuits that come with it) but when it comes to hurting the very people universities are meant to serve - your students.

Enter the concept of “universal design” - a bold concept that strives to ensure that in all respects, accommodations are made for students with disabilities, levelling the playing field and making education and opportunity more accessible. The challenge of course comes with ensuring there are budgetary capabilities and the logistical accommodations that are required across the board to facilitate these efforts, but what if there was another way to look at this, at least conceptually?

What if you realized that your students with disabilities were in fact, your institutions’ secret weapon?

In the world around us, it’s the outliers who drive progress. The people who are outside the norm and challenge the status quo. It’s these people who force institutions to stretch and adapt, to innovate, create and to drive people to think outside the box. Consider for example, the benefits that providing universal design for transcriptions offers all of your students. It’s a significant advantage to general student learning and may be something that causes prospective students to consider your university ahead of others.

Ask yourself if, as a prospective student touring a university for the first time, you are told that the university has accommodations for all students, would you find that more or less appealing than a university that is reactive to demand? What else would you think about the university?

I, for one would ask where else they are lagging behind.

David