CAPÍTULO VII De los Representantes
SECCIÓN SEGUNDA
My purpose with this chapter has been to begin to open a conversation, both about the good work, offerings, and policies around faculty development and disability that are already happening at York University, and the challenges that still exist. While I laboured to balance participant voices, perspectives, and efforts with a critical examination of the data, my social model of disability lens challenged me to also consider my emergents in terms of gaps and barrier removal. The social model of disability influences my thesis and analysis on both macro and micro levels. On the macro level, the whole rationale scaffolding this thesis is generated from a social model perspective, with the idea that the very lack of discussion on this topic exposes a gap. If the challenges and frustrations I have uncovered around faculty development and disability do not begin to be addressed, faculty awareness and education around disability, accessibility and inclusion will continue to be impeded, and therefore so will student access and retention, an important awareness insofar as this research contributes to the understanding that helping faculty also helps students.
The social model of disability further resonates on a micro level, in terms of thinking through how faculty development resources and offerings in the York context generally frame or conceive of disability. It is at this micro level that both the tensions and possibilities of social model thinking really play out. The inherent tension of social model thinking lies in the awareness that it can sometimes disparage medical model or accommodation approaches (achieving access through accommodations), when this approach can actually be important and useful for ensuring access and legal compliance and helping faculty understand the accommodation process and impairment.
My study has led me to understand that in the complex realm of PSE policy and practice, it can be more productive to think of the social and medical models of disability as a spectrum of possible approaches or knowledge positions, rather than as
opposing frameworks, since “different models of disability are appropriate in different contexts” (Confidential Key Informant Interview, February 29, 2016). In the context of faculty development and disability, the accommodation approach (medical model), which seems to underlie many of the development offerings at York (particularly online and text based resources), has uses and merits, such as leading to the development of university policies and procedures and resource guides on disability. Yet, my research also suggests that too much focus on an accommodation approach, which frames access as an individual issue, can be problematic. The issue is that too much of a medical model approach can lead faculty to focus on students’ bodies and impairments, rather than on the complexity of their lived experiences and ways to create more inclusive universities and classrooms, as an institutional imperative.
For example, one of the faculty members I tried to solicit for participation in this study, declined, stating that she couldn’t help me because the responsibility for supporting students with disabilities lies with Disability Services. While there are pockets of development offerings that seem to approach disability from a social model lens, such as some of the in person-offerings through the TC, this faculty member’s rationale for her refusal to participate in my study suggests that more faculty development offerings which conceive of disability and support through social model thinking or inclusive design approaches would be beneficial.
Infusing more social model thinking and connected approaches like UDL or UDI into faculty development practices would be useful for “challeng[ing] the instructor to go beyond legal compliance to proactively design an accessible course and integrate practice so that other students benefit as well. UDI can be applied to all aspects of instruction, including class climate, interaction, physical environments and products, delivery methods, information resources and technology, feedback, and assessment” (Burgstahler, 2015, p.1). My findings and analyses therefore suggests that Ontarian universities, like York, should build more social model thinking or inclusive design approaches into development opportunities, and the crafting of resources for faculty. This approach could help to
dispel the myth that students with disabilities only belong to disability services. We are here to assist students, to make sure that the university does what it's legally responsible to do, which is to accommodate, but sometimes that results in a siloing of who is responsible [for accessibility, access, and
inclusion]. This student is everybody's student. They are not our student just because they’re registered with us. They're YOUR student, as well. This is YOUR obligation, too. It's not really just mine. It's OURS [as staff, faculty, and the university at large] to work together to figure out what we are going to do [to support students], how we are going to do it, what's fair, and what’s reasonable… (Confidential Key-Informant interview, February 5, 2016).
This comment lays the groundwork for the possibilities gained by adopting social model thinking: if faculty development opportunities and offerings include more inclusive design approaches, it could begin the slow process of a paradigm shift. Framing disability as a social response to difference will help provide the underpinning to an institutional culture where access is not only the responsibility of a specialized service (like DS); if the understanding exists that access issues stem from the environment, then we are all equally responsible for creating a culture of inclusion (in our classrooms and teaching methods as well). The AODA (2005) regulations, particularly section 16 of the IASR (2011), begins this process of helping to create a paradigm shift in how educators and universities view access, disability and students with disabilities, but it is not enough.
Individual universities, like York, need to go beyond the letter of the law to infuse more inclusive design or social model thinking into their faculty development offerings, alongside those offerings that have an accommodation approach. Adopting the underlying belief that access issues stem from society and that inclusion is achieved through designing the institution to be inclusive to everyone, could be an important impetus for building a university culture in which faculty development around UDL, disability and inclusion is a part of the structure of the institution, and not simply an ‘after thought’, or only the responsibility of the TC or DS, nor just the passion project of small pockets of dedicated faculty activists using their ‘free’ time for the subsistence of development programs around disability. The hope is that such thinking would increase the number of initiatives woven directly into the fabric of the university, complete with implementation strategies and infrastructure. The tensions and possibilities of social model thinking for faculty development program approaches supporting students with disabilities leads me to adopt a practical approach in my recommendations (below) that can also help build sustainable steps of incremental change (Yager, 2008). Having small steps of incremental change to address gaps and challenges --while at once acknowledging that sometimes an accommodation approach can also be helpful-- aids in
applying the social model knowledge position in ways that are achievable within the current PSE system.