Did you know that nearly one-fifth of our students are registered with the SSU disability office? It is one of the most common identities in our community, and yet students with disabilities in higher education often have to deal with marginalization, barriers to learning, and ableism. In this series, you’ll hear from faculty and students with disabilities about some ways that we as faculty can support this community. First post is co-authored by SSU Instructional Designer Abby Machson-Carter and School of Social Work faculty member Elspeth Slayter. Check out Part II: Affirming Spaces for d/Deaf Students, Part III, Universal Design for Learning, and Part IV, Affirming Spaces for Blind Students.

Did you know...?

Whether you know it or not, it's likely you have students with disabilities in your class. National statistics tell us that typically 26% of American adults have a disability (CDC).
Not all disabled students disclose their status or request accommodations. Some have previously experienced bias or discrimination after disclosing, some fear being seen as ‘different,’ some don't have the funds to re-test after high school to get a new accommodation, and some folks with learning challenges may never have been evaluated (but still struggle). Others register with the Disability Services office for official accommodations.
Being disabled can be an important part of students' identities and having a positive disability identity is connected to long-term psychological health. Not all students embrace disability culture, though. For example, many d/Deaf people take part in a vibrant d/Deaf community, and may not regard deafness as a disability.

Supporting Students with Disabilities

Educate yourself about ableism as well as disability communities, history and advocacy. For example, learning the basics of disability etiquette can help you interact positively with disabled students in your class - while understanding that each student is different.
Consider ways to create disability-affirming spaces in your classes. These spaces embrace disability as diversity, have consistent implementation of accommodations, support disability advocacy, honor realistic expectations, consider the assets of having disabled students, and involve people who examine and discuss their own disability biases.
Explore Universal Design for Learning (UDL), a curriculum design framework with the goal of supporting all students in a class. One important principle is that many strategies designed to help disabled students will also help a wide range of students, for example, captions on videos, a well-organized Canvas course, or "chunking" video content into short segments. Learn more in Part III of this series, Universal Design for Learning.

As the series continues, you’ll hear from faculty and students with disabilities on ways we can be disability-affirming in our classes. We’ll share strategies to support students with specific disabilities, as well as practical, low-lift strategies to build a curriculum that is flexible enough to respond to the needs of many different kinds of students.

- Abby Machson-Carter, SSU Instructional Designer and Elspeth Slayter, SSU School of Social Work

Sources/Resources

It's Time for a Reimagining of Disability Etiquette - guide with simple recommendations for interacting with disabled people.
About Universal Design for Learning- short intro video with links to more detailed UDL guidelines
Check out the "Accidental UDL Tool" (Links to an external site.) for a list of easily adoptable UDL strategies for higher education.
- This comes out of research on how faculty at Tufts and Salem State Universities responded to the pandemic (Links to an external site.) by Kirsten Behling, Kate Pillette, and Lisa Bibeau, the Assistant Dean for Disability Services at Salem State.
SSU Disability Services is ready and willing to partner with faculty

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