Conceptualizing the New Accessibility in Higher Education: Leveraging Disruption for Transformative Opportunity

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

While campuses have transitioned back to in-person activities, the global pandemic and several key social justice movements have left a lasting effect on higher education. This symposium proposal explores the various areas of higher education, highlighting how barriers to access were identified and how accessibility was reimagined and improved through the perspectives of faculty, administrators, and students. Higher education can no longer ignore issues of accessibility nor revert to previous, antiquated, and discriminatory policies that are devoid of inclusive and accessible practices to support the success of disabled students. This symposium will provide a roadmap for the continued integration of more accessible strategies within modern higher education through a conceptual framing of the multidimensionality of accessibility.

Sub Unit

• Division J - Postsecondary Education / Division J - Section 6: Society, Culture, and Change

Chair

• Katherine C. Aquino, St. John's University

Discussant

• Adam R. Lalor, Landmark College

Papers

• Connecting Sense of Belonging with Accessibility - Annemarie Vaccaro, University of Rhode Island; Adam Moore, University of Rhode Island; Barbara M. Newman, University of Rhode Island; Ezekiel Kimball, University of Maine

• Connecting Intersectionality to Accessibility - Ryan A. Miller, University of Tennessee; Rachel E. Friedensen, St. Cloud State University; Annemarie Vaccaro, University of Rhode Island; Ezekiel Kimball, University of Maine

• Connecting the Whole Self Approach to Accessibility - Emily Tarconish, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign