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Definitions and Naming Practices
Pedagogy and Accommodations Within the Undergraduate Classroom
Conclusion: Legal Frameworks of Access
While accommodation letters aim to alleviate student access fatigue and provide accommodation across courses, accommodation letters also exist to prevent potential lawsuits against the university. Accommodation letters are not primarily about student access or pedagogy but about risk management. A great deal of scholarship surrounding accommodation letters centers on legal frameworks, not critical disability studies or Mad studies’ perspectives. Often, these texts serve to instruct audiences on how to minimize labor for these offices and/or reduce the number of students who come to these spaces. Legal scholar Michael R. Masinter’s article “Avoid the Word ‘Reasonable’ in Accommodations Policy” in Disability Compliance for Higher Education is one clear example of legal-based writing focusing on risk management over student access needs or critical pedagogy. Facilitating access can be understood in two distinct ways: compliance-based and transformative. “There is a profound difference between consumptive access and transformative access. The former involves allowing people to enter a space or access a text. The latter questions and re-thinks the very construct of allowing” (Brewer et al. 152-53). Thinking beyond just the written words of an accommodation letter can better enable transformative access. Access being reduced to legal standards invokes Dolmage’s defeat devices whereby access can meet legal standards but mask other discrimination (74).
Transformative access calls on instructors to imagine beyond accommodation letters or compliance-based policy. Such pedagogical moves would better facilitate FYC classroom contexts. Rhetoric and composition scholar Michael Neal gave a talk during the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) 2024 session titled “Moving Toward Accessibility: Addressing Two Myths of Universal Access in Online Instruction.” Neal’s argument expanded Dolmage’s retrofit directly into a rhetoric and composition context. One of Neal’s major contributions was an extended visual metaphor of access as the “North Star.” When considering access as the “North Star,” instructors may be able to reframe previous conceptions they had about how access fits into their classrooms. Access is not the destination, but rather an ever-present guide, Neal argues. While Neal was not talking about the specific impact of accommodation letters, his articulation of destinations and guides is poignant to FYC instructions and the limitations of accommodation letters in higher education. The accommodation letter was never intended to be an end in and of itself. Yet, so often, it is perceived to be the “final word” on accommodations by instructors -- to carry Neal’s metaphor further, the accommodation letter might act as a star chart: a tool that could help one see the North Star and better situate themselves in the night sky. I am not calling for the removal of accommodation letters; rather, I call on FWC instructors to consider the letter as part of a transformative pedagogical action.
Instructors ought to think with and through disability and Madness rather than simply thinking about madness and disability (Price, Mad at School). “Mad studies is a movement, a discipline, and a form of activism, thus it is a praxis. It can be seen as the first survivor-led movement which has sought to develop strong philosophical and theoretical principles” (Beresford and Rose 5). Beresford and Rose demonstrate what Mad Studies offers the global paradigmatic mental health knowledge base while also acknowledging the existing shortcomings and Western focus of Mad Studies. They write, “psych understandings continue to privilege individualizing explanations” (2). A Mad studies praxis in a FYC context would help move past biomedical models that frame disability and Madness on a single individual. “Mad studies offers a route to decolonisation [sic] (of GMH) [global mental health] consistent with decolonising [sic] aims and values. Thus: It is collective, Ideologically committed, but culturally and philosophically open, Participatory rather than directive, Committed to inclusion and the valuing of experiential knowledges and diversity” (Beresford and Rose 5-6). The participatory and community focus connects Mad Studies praxis with other established pedagogical traditions like critical pedagogy.
Lastly, there cannot be a point where access issues are considered “solved.” Bodyminds will never be static, unmoving objects. Calling back to the visual metaphor of the North Star, FYC instructors ought to view access as a guide rather than a fixed destination. Instructors should remember that the accommodation letter is not a good in and of itself, but the letter is one point among many that can aid students. We move towards access while acknowledging that we never fully reach it. Moreover, disability and Madness are not experienced in isolation. Direct pedagogical response can deprivilege the academy’s focus on disability as an individual problem in need of solving. Critical pedagogy is one approach that might help center varied student lived experiences, including disability and/or Mad identity, within the classroom. One of the benefits of critical pedagogy is the focus on community; a community focus can give rise to knowledge-making that would not be possible within other frameworks. Critical pedagogy as a framework asks educators to critically engage and consider what they are trying to accomplish with their pedagogy. FYC might consider how Madness and disability are excluded and/or included in the FYC classroom. Are there readings by writers with disabilities and/or Mad identities? Are personal narratives welcomed and validated in the classroom? Do teaching and learning actions facilitate possibilities of hope?