Editor’s note: This is the second article in a two-part series. Read the first part here.
When people hear the word “accessibility,” they often associate it with ramps, elevators and parking spots. While these are helpful aids to people with physical disabilities, the often overlooked issue, especially on a college campus, comes in the form of academic accessibility. One would think that Tufts as an institution of higher education would make academic accessibility a top priority within its classrooms. However, that is not always the case.
Junior BFA student Sam Webb spoke about their challenges with getting accommodations for both physical and academic disabilities at Tufts while pointing out a key difference between the two.
“The fact is, my physical disabilities and chronic illness are the reason I have gotten accommodations,” Webb said. “If I had walked in the door and started off with saying I have an ADHD and depression diagnosis, I would not have been taken as seriously. There are more students on this campus, I think, who struggle with their mental health and dealing with executive dysfunction, depression and burnout than I think do with chronic illnesses. And that’s not to say that those two things are separate. They’re inherently intertwined.”
Webb pointed out the difference in gravity given to physical disabilities over mental disabilities, which can be seen in the Tufts resource centers as well as in professors’ responses.
Kim Ruane, chair of the mathematics department, expressed the animosity felt by some professors towards academic accommodations, who cite increasing numbers of student accommodations as creating difficulty in meeting the specific needs of those students.
“In faculty or department meetings people keep throwing out the phrase, ‘there are more and more students with accommodation,’” Ruane said.
Ruane countered this line of thinking by arguing that there may be a deeper issue in pedagogy.
“Is it that those particular students need accommodation? I personally feel like it’s more like traditional methods of teaching might not be working,” she said.
Specifically, Ruane has learned that students learn in a variety of ways and exams may not be the best way to assess whether or not a student has learned course material.
“One thing I’ve learned over the years from dealing with students that have a range of accommodations … is understanding that not everybody learns the same way,” she said. “[Assessing student learning] might not come in the form of a written exam that’s really high stakes, that is 75 minutes of your life where you’re sweating.”
Responding to these realizations, Ruane has tried to implement graded assignments that are not just timed exams, such as projects and group work “activity days.”
“I get to see the students in a different way, I get to see who has collaborative skills, especially when working on math problems,” she said.
Beyond changing teaching strategies, Ruane has also worked with the Student Accessibility and Academic Resources Center — also known as the StAAR center — which is in charge of all academic accommodations for students, extensively throughout her time at Tufts.
As a student in need of accommodations, Webb has had plenty of communication with the StAAR Center as well. Some of Webb’s accommodations stem from changes in the SMFA classes that affect all students.
“It’s frustrating being a BFA student, [because Tufts is] increasing the number of hours for studio classes to five hours in one day and not increasing the number of credits,” Webb said. “When you add one hour to in-class work, you’re adding three hours to the student side.”
Webb went to the StAAR Center to request accommodation for reduced course work amid the increase in class hours. They spoke to accessibility specialist Jesse Neikrie, who was surprised to hear about the changes.
“She told me ‘Sam, this is the first I’m hearing of this. We have been asking to be included in these conversations with admin and academics, but we haven’t been included,’” Webb said.
While Webb ended up receiving their reduced coursework accommodation, it was not without them gaining insight into institutional issues.
“The biggest [issue] in trying to navigate the systems on this campus is the offices on this campus do not talk to each other,” they said.
Kirsten Behling, associate dean of student accessibility and academic resources at the StAAR Center, explained the communication that the center does.
“We work to connect with students and professors in many different ways. … We also offer one-on-one meetings with students and professors who may have questions about specific accommodations or need more information about their role in the process,” she wrote in an email to the Daily.
Ruane agreed from the perspective of professors who may not be experts in accessibility and accommodations.
“We can communicate with the StAAR Center and there [are] great people out there that we’ve worked with [on complex accommodations, because] we don’t know how [some accommodations] look in a math class,” she said.
Leandra Elion, who teaches the course Disability and Difference in Children in the child study and human development department, has a fresh perspective about professors being more in control of making their classrooms accessible.
“I feel like I understand all the accommodations that are available to students through the StAAR Center, … and I’ve tried to incorporate that into my class so that students can see I’m explicit about it,” she said.
Elion expressed that it could be more difficult for other professors with required material to cover to make the same changes in the classroom as she did.
Ruane expressed a similar sentiment.
“There’s a certain responsibility we have in foundational classes that build upon each other and that other departments [expect] students have taken, [like] calculus or physics … [and professors expect] that [students] have a certain body of knowledge,” she said. “We feel an obligation to make sure that’s happening, or at least present it so that students have the opportunity to learn it.”
STEM classes, math ones in particular, are usually quite cyclical with assignments being turned in weekly. Ruane feels as though she and other members of her department find some accommodations dealing with assignment extensions difficult because students may fall behind.
“That is a disaster from the viewpoint of multisection courses … and pedagogically, we don’t see it as something that could possibly be helping the student,” she said. There’s a machine in place and when one little thing goes off that machine, parts start flying everywhere.”
Elion expressed that the Center for the Enhancement of Learning and Teaching at Tufts offers resources from workshops to faculty study groups to help faculty best build accommodations into their course design, which can help keep the “machine” more intact.
Ruane shared her frequent participation in CELT workshops and how helpful they have been in making her classroom both more accessible and inclusive.
“Just [at the] base level, they’re great because you get to talk to other people that care about teaching,” she said.
Heather Dwyer, the associate director for teaching, learning and inclusion at CELT, elaborated on professors increasing academic accessibility in the classroom.
“Academic accessibility is largely about changing the learning environment proactively so that more students can access learning materials and experiences,” she wrote in an email to the Daily.
She gave some examples of ways in which teachers can implement classroom changes.
“Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is a useful framework for thinking about accessibility. In this framework, instructors consider how to provide students with multiple means of engagement, representation, action/expression,” she wrote.
These practices are not only beneficial for students with accommodations already but also those who just have a different way of learning information.
In the end, academic accessibility is a complex and intersectional topic.
“Disabled or not, accessibility is a blanket affecting everything that happens here on campus from your political activists who are protesting for a cause to your students who are just trying to get through [organic chemistry],” Webb said. “When we’re talking about accessibility, on campus, it’s all soup — it is all mixed together. It is all one thing. But there is no one good answer, there’s no ‘one size fits all.’”
Webb argued that many students face inaccessibility in academia by reaching a point of burnout, which is often not seen as abnormal or a signal of deeper issues in academia. However, maybe with a change in the way students learn in higher education, colleges can try and alleviate some of burnout’s root causes.
“Academia has a long history of being exclusionary, elitist, and conflating rigor with ‘difficulty for the sake of difficulty.’ As a result, sometimes longstanding disciplinary practices feel at odds with accessibility. But this need not be the case,” Dwyer wrote.
