| dc.description.abstract | Implementing Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act (Section 504) within post-secondary environments is one of the critical indicators of success for students with disabilities (SWD). Many disability resource offices, however, experience a tension between inclusion and access for SWD on campus due to an alignment of compliance with Section 504 and, thereby, a medical model of disability. The exploration for compliance and inclusion in a disability resource office (DRO) was conducted with a prestigious private university in the southern United States. An in-depth review of the organization uncovered the presenting organizational problem of a lack of formal mechanisms to collect and use student, faculty, and other university stakeholder data regarding the perceived effectiveness of the services and support provided by the DRO. Research questions that guided our work were:
RQ1: How do students use the University's Disability Resource Office to navigate their student experience (e.g., academic progress, community engagement, campus access, and inclusion)?
RQ2: What are students' perceptions of Disability Resource Office services, primarily related to their persistence, completion, and sense of inclusion in the University community?
RQ3: What relationship do race and ethnicity have with student use and perceptions of the University's Disability Resource Office’s accommodations, testing services, and student experience?
RQ4: What are faculty's perceptions of the Disability Resource Office, especially regarding their pedagogy and impact on the classroom and their overall perceptions of students with disabilities?
The study used a mixed-methods program improvement design. Methods utilized included student and faculty surveys, focus group interviews with students and faculty, and interviews with key informants—members of the DRO team.
Our findings spanned across domains related to students, faculty, and the university. We found that students had overall positive perceptions of the DRO. Students, regardless of race/ethnicity, gender, or school/department affiliation, had similar perspectives of the office. We found the medical model of disability affects students, especially those who identify as having a disability, where they experience the weight and challenges of managing their disability through legal processes rather than the support and inclusion of the system that acknowledges the environment, not the student, as the problem. The struggle to get and implement accommodations that suit their needs, the challenge of navigating negative peer and faculty interactions, and the compounding effects of ableism and a college environment that is slowly reactive to SWD needs rather than proactively engaging are laid out in the findings.
Additionally, we discovered that the impact of the medical model of disability and ongoing systemic biases regarding students with disabilities is significant within the University faculty environment. The elements of disability, race/ethnicity, and school affiliation all present significant findings for consideration by the DRO and the broader University administration. The key findings include a need to clarify the role and function of the DRO, the access to and purpose of accommodations, and addressing broader misperceptions of students with disabilities.
From these findings, we offer four recommendations to the DRO: formalize mechanisms to seek regular feedback on perceptions and service; explore the development of a DRO advisory committee; explore the development of a robust faculty professional development program; and explore the development of a disability inclusion taskforce and disability cultural center. | |
