Perspectives on Diverse Student Identities in Higher Education

International Perspectives on Equity and Inclusion

Jaimie Hoffman, Patrick Blessinger, Mandla Makhanya, Jaimie Hoffman, Patrick Blessinger, Mandla Makhanya

• Publisher: Emerald Publishing Limited
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781787560543
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Higher Education

Higher education institutions continue to address an increasinglycomplex set of issues regarding equity, diversity and inclusion. Many institutionsface increasing pressure to find innovative solutions to eliminate access, participation, and achievement barriers as well as practices that impederetention and graduation rates in higher education. This book provides educators with a global understanding of the challenges associated with the growing diversity ofstudent identities in higher education and provides evidence-based strategiesfor addressing the challenges associated with implementing equity and inclusionat different higher education institutions around the world.

CHAPTER 1

ACCESSIBILITY AND ACCEPTANCE FOR UNIVERSITY STUDENTS WITH DIVERSE ABILITIES

Naomi Jeffery Petersen and Sandra J. Gruberg

ABSTRACT

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was enacted in 1990, comprehensively addressing the life needs and civil rights of people with disabilities (PWDs). Although the ADA would prohibit discrimination in the workforce, public services, transportation, and information, therefore spurring efforts by private and public institutions to plan for and adopt accessible environments and practices, the actual voice and experience of PWDs often remains unacknowledged, even on university campuses and in academic programs that purport to have progressive ideals. This chapter examines the efforts made by one midsized, comprehensive, American university not only to remove architectural, social, and academic barriers to student success as required by law, but to establish an academic voice for the disability experience and the disability rights movement through the newly founded Accessibility Studies Program.

Keywords: Ableism; accessibility; civil rights; curriculum; disability; identity; learning disabilities; microaggression; UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities; Web Accessibility Guidelines (WAG)

What began in 1891 as a teacher’s college in a western outpost town has become a regional comprehensive university that no longer sees teacher education as its primary identity. Like most institutions of higher education, the university devotes considerable efforts to defining its purpose and promoting its diversity mission of “serving the underserved.” The university is an emerging Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) and actively promotes equity for underrepresented groups based on race and sexual orientation through student life events and academic programs such as Ethnic Studies and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. That commitment to providing a safe and inclusive learning environment for a diverse student population also extends to the population of students with disabilities through Disability Services (DS), a department that addresses barriers in academics, technology, and architecture, and then facilitates appropriate and reasonable accommodations and modifications. However, this institutional effort to modify services and facilities is only a part of the university’s story of accessibility and acceptance for students with diverse abilities. With the launch of the new Accessibility Studies Program (ASP), programming has evolved from primarily addressing federally mandated accommodations to designing and implementing an academic program (certificate and/or degree minor) that gives voice to the experience of people with disabilities (PWDs), exploring perceptions, self-efficacy, identity, and the right to social justice. This chapter is a preliminary investigation to describe the state of awareness and acceptance of disability at Central Washington University (CWU), written by the professor who initiated the program and a student who was enrolled in the inaugural course.

EQUITY IN HIGHER EDUCATION

On an international scale, Article 24 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2006) defined “The right to education and to obtain inclusive education with others in the community,” following principles that address the identity and experience of the individual. This convention is binding for the members of the United Nations, each country being the community to which the PWDs have the right to be included. These communities vary greatly in the education they afford to all people.

Governments who sign the convention promise to fulfill three practical obligations: to respect the right with explicit laws and policies, to protect individuals with systemic safeguards, and to fulfill the intent of the convention with effective action. As noted by the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (2010), monitoring these states for compliance is reduced to the following question: Do persons with disabilities have access to inclusive education at all levels? While simple access is the primary condition, the focus of this chapter is also on the identity of the individuals with disabilities and their experience of inclusion.

In the United States of America, one such country that has signed the convention, there are federal civil rights laws guaranteeing access in all public accommodations, including schools, but the many states and territories within the country have sovereignty regarding education. In broad terms, the federal government provides funding for specific programs that may have social justice criteria. Federal funds are withheld if the institutions in any state do not comply with those criteria. There is a cumulative effect as states pass their own laws, having autonomy in their actual implementation of the federal guidelines as long as they align with the spirit of the law.

EQUITABLE ACCESS LEGISLATION

The context of this chapter is a public institution of higher education in a western American State, requiring a bit of legal background to understand the perspective of the stakeholders regarding PWDs as part of its student population. In just a few decades, the citizens of the United States have become accustomed to standards of equitable access in public accommodations, thanks to parts of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, amended in 2010. These acts provide language to define the rights of people who have traditionally experienced exclusion.

It is important to point out the difference between civil rights legislation and spending appropriation, both of which are products of congressional action, and that enforcement of federal regulations occurs in response to citizen complaints via agency procedures or court cases. In actual practice, there is no legally required monitoring of ADA compliance. In the event of a complaint lodged against an institution, the documentation of planning to comply often excuses the offense because it has been acknowledged and therefore not violating the spirit of the law. Thus, there is some debate from a business standpoint surrounding the value of compliance (and the associated time, personnel, technology, and infrastructure expenses) versus the cost of risking noncompliance, mainly the expense of ad hoc defense lawyers. This was noted in a report by the Government Accountability Office (2011) studying vendors of standardized tests used for university admission that found “Justice has not initiated compliance reviews of testing companies, and its technical assistance on this subject has been limited” (p. 2). Such a strategy is passive and not the proactive approach necessary for achieving real and lasting change.

As a civil rights law, ADA carries no funding but provides legal justification for complaints of exclusion or mistreatment and defines minimum standards of accommodation. Compliance with its guidelines is now embedded in other regulatory procedures, such as building project approval. The rules are very concrete regarding the functional features and organization of facilities, and the guidelines emphasize the personal and practical experience of the individuals affected by their implementation. After 20 years of implementation, a trend of narrow interpretation was noted in court cases, prompting the 2010 amendment that more clearly defined disability.

The 1973 Rehabilitation Act, however, was a spending bill, originally authorizing federal aid to the disabled. Of powerful and lasting consequence was its civil rights protection outlined in Section 504, modeled on the Civil Rights Act of 1964, ruling out discrimination based on race, color, or national origin. Soon after, the Education of All Handicapped Children Act of 1975 established the right of students to education in the least restrictive environment. Implementing regulations is a dramatic story well described by Shapiro (1997) who noted that the two laws together, finally implemented in 1977, “would give rise to a new generation of well-educated disabled children, who then went on to college in record numbers” (Shapiro, 1997, p. 70).

EQUITABLE EDUCATION LEGISLATION

The most significant education legislation is the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, which has since been amended to address equitable inclusion of underserved groups, for example, those in poverty, those with Limited English Proficiency, and women. It has been reauthorized and given more informal titles several times, that is, the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 that profoundly shifted authority away from local school districts to the state, and more recently, the Every Student Succeeds Act which highlighted the rights of parents to be actively involved in decisions. Every state must provide education at no cost to the student, but each state may determine when attendance is compulsory.

Postsecondary education was also addressed in the civil rights era with the Higher Education Act of 1965, later the Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008, which specifically addressed the emerging pedagogical context of distance via online technology and the need for accessible materials, for example, assistive technology. The Assistive Technology of Act of 1998, later known as the Tech Act of 2004, focused on the funding of assistive technology devices (such as screen readers and voice-recognition software) and services (such as interpreters and advocates). This aligns with Rehabilitation Act Section 508, amended by the Workforce Investment Act of 1998, requiring assistive technology for employees, and the Instructional Materials Accessibility Act of 2002, requiring accessibility standards for electronic textbooks. Further contributing to legislation aimed at increasing accessibility is Policy 188, a 2017 Washington State mandate affecting all state agencies and requiring all electronic information technology to be made accessible for PWDs.

Thus, American university students with disabilities will have experienced institutions sensitive to the functional needs related to access and learning and will be aware of their rights to postsecondary education and employment. If students were eligible for special education services, they have experienced close supervision and extensive advocacy on their behalf with a deliberate emphasis on “transition” beyond the age of 18 when they would receive federally funded programs. The individualized education program (IEP), developed for each student with a disability under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), must address transition services requirements beginning no later than the first IEP to be in effect when the child turns 16, or younger if determined appropriate by the IEP Team, and must be updated annually thereafter. The IEP must include (1) appropriate measurable postsecondary goals based upon age-appropriate transition assessments related to training, education, employment, and, where appropriate, independent living skills; and (2) the transition services (including courses of study) needed to assist the student with a disability in reaching those goals. There is no equivalent in higher education.

AMERICAN HIGHER EDUCATION

The United States does not guarantee postsecondary education. Each institution is managed somewhat like a business, with tuition calculated to produce revenue, supplementing funding from patronizing institutions, individuals, and agencies. In 2015, there were 2,584 four-year institutions in America, 669 of which were public, that is, governed according to state regulations. Of those, 28% grant doctoral degrees and 29% grant only bachelor’s degrees. CWU is one of the 40% that award both undergraduate and master’s degrees (McFarland et al., 2017). Its board of regents is appointed by the governor of the State of Washington. Both private and public institutions may receive some federal monies and thus must comply with federal mandates described above; however, there is a great difference between private and public institutions in terms of funding.

In American universities, academic programs are not sustainable if there is not adequate student enrollment to generate enough tuition revenue to justify the expense of faculty. Faculty scholarship is produced as part of their workload funded by tuition and, less often, by research grants. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, the average cost of tuition at a private four-year institution is around $28,000. A century ago, tuition was free at this public institution; it is now $8,000 a year for residents and $20,000 for nonresidents. Room and board costs close to $10,000 at any institution. The cost is the responsibility of the individual student. Once enrolled, the student is granted access to a broad range of resources, including the library and student support services such as tutoring and DS. These services vary considerably between institutions and typically do not require additional fees.

Typically, American undergraduate degrees require about two years of General Education requirements followed by two or three years of coursework required for degree completion. Many students complete their General Education requirements at a local two-year institution and then transfer to a two-year institution for a bachelor’s degree. The degree programs are categorized as majors and minors. A liberal arts tradition places value on accumulating a broad exposure to the range of scientific, humanities, and arts disciplines. A practical tradition places value on preparing students for successful careers, as seen in a new ranking system that measures a college by its economic impact on graduates. CWU ranked 124 out of 1,275 public and private colleges and universities in the study conducted by The Economist (2015). Often students balance technical and personal interests by combining majors leading to professional certification with more esoteric minors. The individual student chooses from a menu of curriculum options to satisfy the graduation requirements. There is articulation between institutions that allows credit to be transferred, especially from two-year to four-year institutions.

EXCLUSIVITY IN AMERICAN HIGHER EDUCATION

There is a postsecondary culture that is not committed to inclusion and success for all as is found in elementary and secondary levels. This is true for the admission process as well as the instructional experience. There are two dynamics involved in admission: recruitment and selection. Institutions want maximum enrollment of students representing a diverse population, but they are also interested in recruiting students with academic promise. Institutions compete with each other for academic prestige (and other types, e.g., athletic) that attract students and justify the expense the students will incur. Students compete with each other for admittance. By its nature, application is a process of exclusion when more students apply for admission than there is room to accept. The admission process is vulnerable to bias, beginning with the criteria for admittance, which may include standardized tests. A study by the Government Accounting Office (2004) found that standardized tests used as admission criteria were not always administered with adequate accommodations for students with disabilities (GAO, 2004). However, the concern for equitable enrollment must be ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Introduction to Perspectives on Diverse Student Identities in Higher Education
• Chapter 1 Accessibility and Acceptance for University Students with Diverse Abilities
• Chapter 2 Assisting Student Veterans with Hidden Wounds: Evaluating Student Support in US Higher Education
• Chapter 3 The United States Military Veteran: A Look at their College Experience and Equitable and Inclusionary Practices
• Chapter 4 “They Say They Value Diversity, But I Don’t See It”: Academic and Social Experiences of First Generation Latinx Students at a Predominately White Midwest Institution
• Chapter 5 The Influence of Socioeconomic Status on Perceptions of Persistence Among African American Students at Major US Universities
• Chapter 6 EYES Theory: A Proposed Racialization and Developmental Identity Model for Understanding Concepts of Race for International Students of Color Studying in US Higher Education Institutions
• Chapter 7 Failure Can Lead to Success When Remediation Builds Resiliency: How Struggling International Medical Students Gain Entry into US Graduate Medical Education Programs
• Chapter 8 The End of Lifelong Learning – Where Have All the Mature Undergraduate Students Gone? A Literature Review and Practical Recommendations from a Case Study in England
• Chapter 9 From Planning to Realization: Who Goes? Who Stops? What Matters?
• About the Authors
• Name Index
• Subject Index