Disability cultural centers: How colleges can move beyond access to inclusion

Abstract

College campuses often house various centers that serve students with different minority identities by providing both a safe space for these students as well as cultural validation. However, it is rare to find centers that specifically serve students with disabilities in this same way. Instead, university services for students with disabilities tend to focus on fulfilling legal requirements of access. In this article, I describe how a Disability Cultural Center was established at my home institution. Currently, only a handful of Disability Cultural Centers exist across the globe. Such centers can play a critical role in shifting the conversation from legal rights to the validation and expression of disability culture. Students with disabilities make up a sizable proportion of college undergraduates. Universities are thus uniquely poised to lead communities in the explicit acknowledgement and support of disability culture.

Keywords:

• Academia
• disability culture
• neurodiversity
• ableism
• disability rights
• social stigma

Introduction

In 2016, a Disability Cultural Center (DCC) was established on the campus of the University of North Carolina Asheville, a small public liberal arts college in the mountains of western North Carolina. UNC Asheville enrolls approximately 3500 students, primarily at the undergraduate level. This article describes how the DCC was established and how the center has led programming in spite of limited resources and funding. It is hoped that our experiences can inform higher education personnel at other institutions who are seeking to found their own centers.

What purpose does a disability cultural center serve?

Susan Peters (2000) describes three possible worldviews for considering disability culture: in terms of a community with a common language and history; a way to organize collective efforts towards social justice by challenging historical and ongoing oppression; and as a personal cultural identity characterized by pride. Students with disabilities, who comprise a highly diverse group, may resonate with one or a combination of these worldviews at any given time during their higher education tenure. Ideally, a Disability Cultural Center’s mission and programming would be responsive to multiple conceptions of disability culture.

Although increasing numbers of students with disabilities have pursued higher education in recent years, they are still a minority on virtually all college campuses. In the United States, for example, approximately 19% of college undergraduates reported having a disability in the 2015-2016 academic year (US Department of Education 2019). In the United Kingdom, about 12% of students enrolled in higher education had a disability in 2016-2017 (Higher Education Statistics Agency). Many students, particularly those with invisible disabilities, do not disclose their disability status. Brown and Leigh (2018) describe ableism in academia as endemic, in particular for staff, in that productivity is emphasized to the degree that overwork is expected. In such a setting, students may feel pressured to hide their disability due to internalized negative beliefs about their disability. Even students who opt to self-identity and disclose their status may similarly view their disability in a negative light.

A Disability Cultural Center can serve students by normalizing disability as well as communicating value for disability. It can also serve as a hub for bringing together students who seek community with one another or for organizing students striving to mobilize efforts to expose issues and campaign for change. Many university settings are rife with inaccessibility. Stephanie Hannam-Swain (2017), for example, describes lack of access to work areas as well as difficulty with getting support workers. And with regard to academic conferences, Marisa De Picker (2019) describes a number of strategies that would increase accessibility and affordability, in particular for individuals with physical disabilities.

While institutions of higher learning typically house a variety of centers serving students that identify as racial/ethnic minorities, members of the LGBTQIA + community, or student veterans, it is much less common to find centers dedicated to students with disabilities. In the U.S., for example, offices that serve students with disabilities primarily focus on academic accessibility and accommodations, as mandated by legislation such as the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. These offices, often referred to as an Office of Disability Services or Office of Academic Accessibility, strive to ensure that students can access course content and materials as well as demonstrate their learning. Similar legislation exists in other western nations, such as the Equality Act 2010 in the UK, which addresses discrimination in a variety of settings and protects various groups. In the UK, the Disabled Student Allowance (DSA) provides financial support for the “extra costs” associated with disability; however, there have been recent cuts to this program (Osborne 2019).

In spite of legislation and potential financial support, students with disabilities still experience lack of inclusion in university settings. Tanya Osborne (2019) describes many issues germane to inclusion in a classroom context: These issues include not only receiving support but feeling the need to justify support without appearing ‘too disabled.’ Instructors are often unprepared to teach disabled students and fail to provide inclusive materials or consider how certain activities may exclude students. Students also fear that instructors assume that, rather than truly needing support, students are lazy or somehow faking their disability. Although classroom inclusion can be systematically addressed through adopting universal design for learning (UDL), many instructors may be unaware of these principles or how to implement them in the classroom. One function of a Disability Cultural Center might be to lead programming to introduce faculty to UDL. At the same time, it can provide peer support for students who are experiencing lack of classroom accommodations. Peer support can be helpful in potentially reducing a sense of isolation as well as providing the opportunity to share concerns and propose solutions that can be shared with the university at large.

How was UNC Asheville’s disability cultural center established?

Often, the two biggest obstacles to establishing a new campus center are funding and space. At UNC Asheville, student Christa Mullis was inspired to establish a Disability Cultural Center after attending a summer leadership academy led by the Autistic Self Advocacy Network (ASAN). Christa approached me, a faculty member in the Psychology department, with this idea and together we drafted a proposal and approached senior administration about the possibility of initiating a center. As UNC Asheville was facing several years of renovations (and hence, a scarcity of space on campus) as well as a smaller operating budget than projected, we were granted permission to exist but given neither space nor funding.

The Psychology department chair then offered use of a spare room in the Psychology wing of an academic building, which housed faculty offices and labs as well as classrooms. Though this room was the size of a small faculty office, it served the critical function of having an initial physical space for the center. Specifically, there was space for 3 to four students to gather and a shelf to store the books donated to our lending library. The following year, the center moved into a much larger space on the ground floor of the campus library.

Ideally, a Disability Cultural Center would be housed in a central location on campus that is comfortable and inviting to students, both for scheduled gatherings and to informally drop in during the day as a safe space on campus.

Staffing and programming with limited resources

At any university, funding for a Disability Cultural Center would likely be limited or even nonexistent. However, there are a number of ways to sustain programming in the absence of a yearly operating budget. Some of the recommendations below may be more relevant to a western university; however, others can apply to any setting.

• Inviting disability activists to speak on campus. In the spring of 2019, activist Lydia X. Z. Brown gave two talks at UNC Asheville as part of Disability is Diversity Week. Various academic departments (including Psychology, Education, and Sociology/Anthropology) contributed funds from their budgets, as did several campus offices (such as the Office of Multicultural Affairs and Office of Academic Accessibility). Academic departments may be particularly invested in supporting speakers when topics overlap with course content.

• Creating a lending library. One of the first features of UNC Asheville’s DCC was establishing a free lending library that is available to both the campus and local community. Many of these books were donated by local community members. Highlighting books written by disabled authors would help to emphasize the center’s mission of respecting and valuing the disabled experience.

• Scheduling low-cost events. A DCC can partner with student organizations to host events. One of our DCC’s first events was an ASL (American Sign Language) Bingo night, co-hosted with the campus ASL club. Another option might be screening movies or documentaries. Although rules may vary, showing a movie or documentary for educational purposes without charging admission may not incur any fees. Many documentaries highlight the disability rights movement. Additionally, social media can be used to establish an online presence and maintain visibility between events.

• Soliciting student volunteers. Student staffers are integral to the success of a DCC and students may be willing to volunteer their time given commitment to the center’s mission of promoting and supporting disability as diversity. Students can help with programming, hold weekly drop-in hours, and otherwise contribute to advertising, hosting, and attending events. In American universities, it may be possible to secure a federal work-study (FWS) line to fund weekly hours for a student worker. Some colleges may have career centers that offer funding for student employment on campus, particularly for internship-type opportunities. Regardless of whether the position is paid or volunteer, prioritizing the hiring of students with disabilities would also support the center’s mission.

Increasing DCCs worldwide

In 2006, the United Nations adopted the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in response to a long history of denying basic human rights and freedoms to people with disabilities across the globe. In many countries, people with disabilities are the last to be included in the fight for human rights (Parnes et al. 2009). And in lower income countries in particular, disability is often associated with greater stigma and shame, with few resources available for families of children with disabilities (see Njelesani et al. 2018).

Consequently, perspectives on disability culture will vary across the globe, particularly in terms of viewing people with disability as ‘objects’ of charity versus ‘subjects’ with rights (United Nations). The growing presence of Disability Cultural Centers may in fact help promote this shift in perspective.

College campuses can serve a key function in contributing to paradigm shifts. They can:

• Provide a safe and welcoming space for students with disabilities and their allies

• Emphasize that disability is a natural and desirable aspect of human diversity

• Educate the wider community about ableism, in both its overt and more subtle forms such as microaggressions

• Connect the campus and local community through shared goals and programming

Although it may seem necessary to first cultivate a critical mass of interested students, staff, and faculty, it can be possible to establish a Disability Cultural Center with only a few dedicated individuals. Furthermore, it is possible to develop and maintain programming at low cost and in partnership with other campus entities. Disability Cultural Centers can fill a tremendous gap in higher education by emphasizing the need to improve inclusion of students with disabilities who are often omitted from campus conversations on diversity.