Critical Imagining of Accommodation Letters for Transformative Access in the First-Year Composition Classroom

Pedagogy and Accommodations Within the Undergraduate Classroom

Disability studies scholars Price and Jay Dolmage, among many others, have called attention to higher education contexts as creating and maintaining student access barriers: “The university erects steep steps to keep certain bodies and minds out” (Dolmage 42). Dolmage’s extended metaphor of the academy’s “steep steps” expands the idea of access beyond the built environment of campuses and includes the course design, assignment descriptions, learning management systems, and discussion boards, among many other examples. “The connected feeling is that the spaces and architectures of the university have been and should continue to be designed to filter out certain bodies and minds” (Dolmage 44). Barriers to access and accessibility breakdown are part of Dolmage’s steep steps. The problems of access in higher education institutions exist as part of a filtering of bodies in social systems. Academe can overintellectualize the lived experience of communities. The politics of exclusion are at play here: who is listened to and who is not, who has rhetorical power and who does not.

Disability studies and Mad studies perspectives can enhance the pedagogical choices of FYC instructors to enhance access. However, individual fixes or retrofits, to use Dolmage’s term, cannot resolve social issues of access. The assumption that the accommodation letter exists to resolve access needs puts too much of the onus on individuals, including instructors and Mad/disabled students, over systemic issues. Dolmage writes, “retrofits are not designed for people to live and thrive with a disability, but rather to temporarily make the disability go away” (70). Accordingly, the accommodation attempts to make the disability “go away.” The very approach of accommodation as a mode of access is positioned within power structures of the student, academic institution, and the instructor of record. Dolmage likens accommodation to defeat devices—tools to “trick” emissions control tests in Volkswagen cars (73). Defeat devices in cars do not aid in emissions concerns, but they meet the legal requirements. Accommodation letters are a productive object to consider because they exist as a moment of rhetorical exchange between students, academic institutions, and instructors. Moreover, these letters are a frequent document in higher education that demonstrates academic institutions’ attitudes and systemic priorities.

Timed Assessments

One of the most common accommodation requests is extended time on timed assessments. However, timed assessments are not common in all academic disciplines, such as the humanities and arts. Nevertheless, the standard letter will have the same language and accommodation regardless of the specific discipline of the course in question. While this accommodation is designed to support students’ accessibility needs, additional time simplifies how people with disabilities and/or Mad identities move through spacetime. However, the “additional time” accommodation is that this accommodation request is relatively easy to comprehend and administer for non-disabled/non-Mad instructors.

Moreover, the experiences of disability and Madness complicate how instructors and students might think about time. The way individuals who identify as Mad and/or disabled interact with time may be particular because much of the world is created for non-disabled and non-Mad bodyminds. Every day actions may take longer for these individuals. For example, someone with ADHD may take longer to complete certain tasks, including schoolwork. Someone with depression might lose their sense of time, which can include forgetting to eat meals or complete an assignment because their perception of time has shifted. Those with Mad identity can experience time periods or actions that they later do not recall – perceptions of self through time can also be impacted.

Moreover, this accommodation implies that there could be a quantifiable “fix” or solution to disability. Price writes that “As an uncanny problem, disability resists being written into policy and resists being fixed—in both senses” (Crip Spacetime, 6). Here, Price is calling attention to the limits of accommodation as a practice; institutionalized accommodation views disability at the individual level rather than recognizing it as a socio-cultural component of lived, human experience. The other sense of “fixed” to which Price refers implies that there can be a “fixed,” or static solution to disability. Accommodation seeks to “resolve” as a return to “normal” for students’ bodyminds and assumes that these solutions, and these “problems” are static.

In my experiences as an FYC instructor, I have heard my peers at multiple institutions express that they do not need to make any pedagogical or course changes to accommodate students with institutional accommodations for “additional time” for formal assessments. Perhaps because FYC and other writing-intensive courses often do not have formalized, timed assessments such as timed exams or quizzes. However, it is an ableist and sanist impulse to assume that there could not be another access issue for those particular students, even in a FYC, writing-intensive course. These passing comments reflect a limited understanding of the concept of access as well as disability and Madness as socio-cultural identity markers and are demonstrative of broader systematic and systemic issues across academic institutions regarding access. Many FYC instructors, like many other academic instructors, believe the accessibility letter is the “final word” in student accommodations for their courses. Again, the institutionalized concepts of access posit the “problem” at the individual student level. Therefore, instructors seek “solutions” to perceived “problems,” i.e., accommodation.

Extensions

To avoid the “steep steps” and the retrofit nature of accommodations, instructors should think proactively about access during the course design process. I have a note in my syllabus inviting students to talk with me regarding access needs in the class, independent of any formal accessibility office. While the “come talk with me” approach can further assess fatigue concerns, a disposition demonstrating a willingness to listen is positive. My syllabus also reflects my flexibility with extensions for writing projects. I grant any student an extension on a writing project if they notify me prior to the original due date. I typically give students 24-48 additional hours on projects. While this flexibility might not seem structured in disability studies or Mad studies, I consider this an inclusive pedagogical practice. This choice recognizes that time does not move in the same ways for all students at all times. I seek to create opportunities for access where my students are not forced to disclose about their bodyminds if they do not want to do so. My experiences as a student and now as an instructor have motivated me to critically investigate the rhetorical and pedagogical dynamics of accommodation letters in higher education. Drawing from my own experiences, granting flexibility to students can be difficult as I balance my access needs within the labor of a PhD program. My own academic responsibilities on my time are why I limit these extensions to only a few days.

The work of access should continue beyond the binary yes/no consideration of the timed assessment in the course. Wood et al. call out against access checklists in design. They write, “while we could offer a checklist, and it would cover many important topics, it would be contrary to the direction in which we want to push writing teachers, which is a more holistic, recursive approach, one in which disability becomes a central, critical and creative lens for students as well as teachers” (148). Disability via student and instructor perspectives should be centered beyond prioritizing a checklist or accommodation letter. My suggestion of extensions in FYC is not intended to serve as a checklist – e.g., give students more time, and all access problems go away. Rather, I offer my approach to extensions as but one example of a way to center access actively.

FYC instructors do not necessarily have comprehensive pedagogies that address and anticipate the students with disabilities and Mad identities in their classroom. Dolmage’s “steep steps” echoes again here, as instructors do not always have the time or resources to fully support their students’ needs or resolve accessibility issues in their courses. Pedagogical and access concerns are often seen as an instructor’s problem rather than an institutional responsibility. A lack of time and resources is pervasive across academic institutions. However, contingent and graduate student instructor status can make these material factors even more pressing. Accessibility and accommodation policies can vary from institution to institution, as I have experienced teaching as a master’s student and then teaching as a PhD student. Such factors can be especially difficult for graduate students who work in the split role of student and instructor – developing their pedagogy while also developing their scholarly identity. In my role at Clemson as an instructor and graduate student, I worry about possibly encountering my students in the Student Accessibility Services Center and the Counseling and Psychological Services Center. Both exist for students; however, I hesitate to utilize these resources because of my split role position at the university. Concerns of seeking institutional support are examples of power dynamics in higher education.

Kairotic Space

Price’s concept of kairotic space is one example of the impact time has on everyday events for Mad/disabled individuals. In Mad at School, Price defines kairotic space as “the less formal, often unnoticed, areas of academe where knowledge is produced and power is exchanged” (60). Some examples of these kairotic spaces may be virtual or in-person. Kairotic spaces in higher education include classrooms, class discussions, conferences, Canvas discussion boards, and office hours with professors. A student meeting with a disability resources office at a university is also an example of a kairotic space. That meeting, which might appear to be “business as usual” for the staff, can be a high-stakes environment for students seeking accommodations. The requirement of institutionalized accessibility requires students’ disclosure of Mad identity and/or disability status. However, the act of self-disclosure may necessitate discussion of traumatic/stressful events for the student. Students may also have experienced stigma in the past when self-disclosing, making this kairotic space a complex experience.

Access Fatigue

The purpose of the accommodation letter is to minimize the number of kairotic spaces where a student would need to experience this act of self-disclosure with institutional officials. While accommodation letters are meant to reduce the fatigue students encounter when gaining access, some of the limitations of the letters also inadvertently contribute to students’ access fatigue in higher education. Annika M. Konrad defines access fatigue as “the everyday pattern of constantly needing to help others participate in access, a demand so taxing and so relentless that, at times, it makes access simply not worth the effort” (180). Access fatigue would include all the labor and work required to get access needs met in social (and a variety of other) situations. The accommodation letter seeks to alleviate or reduce the access fatigue a student might encounter in their courses. However, for a student to obtain both the accommodation letter and the course specific accommodation is often a complex challenge. If an instructor cannot actualize the access need for their student, then the access fatigue is exacerbated.

Price calls attention to the limits of access in Crip Spacetime, stating, “The current approach to access isn’t just ineffective; it’s actively making things worse” (7). When the accommodation letter fails to communicate a student’s access need in a particular course or when an official institutional accommodation cannot specify a student’s access needs, both events further exacerbate access fatigue for students. A common pedagogical remedy to this problem is for instructors to state something like: “Come talk to me if you need any additional support.” While this is a positive and well-meaning statement (and one I have made myself), it still places access labor on the student and often implies at least some level of student disclosure of disability/Mad identity status.

Furthermore, the student who self-discloses to their instructor faces the risk that an instructor may not believe, recognize, or understand this self-disclosure and/or its relationship to the student’s access need. For example, an instructor might say that a student’s declared generalized anxiety disorder is “in your head,” or “everyone worries,” “college is hard,” or other similarly harmful statements. The power dynamics between students and an instructor are an inherent complexity in this kairotic situation. Creating avenues for students to speak with instructors about their individual access needs is a benefit; the issue comes when the only possible way to resolve access needs is limited in that way. The letter can serve as an opening to access possibilities, but it is not the end of access in and of itself.