CCCC 2005: ReviewReview: Physical and Conceptual Accessibility in Composition: A Review of Wednesday Morning Workshop 1, “Disability and Access” Access to higher education is usually framed in terms of academic standards and gatekeeping, or about sociocultural and financial barriers that make attending college more difficult for particular groups of people. However, access also has much to do with bodies and how those bodies navigate physical and conceptual spaces. This Wednesday morning workshop, “Disability and Access: Enabling the People, Technologies, and Spaces of Composition,” taking disability as its focus, worked to move beyond traditional demarcations of access towards understanding how physical and conceptual spaces can even more broadly construe accessibility. Participants raised attention to ways that access is constructed in a multitude of ways, and explored about some of the more “invisible” ways that accessibility may be denied to disabled members of the university population. Each presenter in this workshop employed a disability perspective to understand how university spaces are and are not accessible to teachers and students with disabilities, getting participants talking and thinking about ways that access can be construed much more broadly than it is commonly done. Although the focus of this workshop was explicitly on disability studies, it is worth noting that these discussions of access are not solely relevant to persons with disabilities—a point made particularly well by Jay Dolmage through his discussion of “universal design,” a central commitment in disability studies more generally. Dolmage unpacked several metaphors of accessibility for classrooms. Through his presentation, he encouraged teachers to move beyond “accommodation” and towards “universal design” as a way of approaching classrooms themselves, suggesting that it was through ‘universal design’ that teachers would create spaces that are accessible and use-able by all members of the school population. Other presentations also utilized universal design as a way of broadening access to all members of a population or group. One particularly compelling roundtable focused on the accessibility of CCCC itself, asking: how can the conference employ principles of “universal design” to make its spaces accessible to all members of the profession who want to participate in these conversations? One way the conference has worked hard to increase accessibility is by providing travel funds for underrepresented participants, such as through the Scholars of the Dream program, and TYCA. Margaret Price and Kristin Lindgren, the presenters at this roundtable worked to encourage participants to consider even more broadly how conferences and academic paces can be accessible. Kristin Lindgren, who was unable to attend the conference herself, sent her paper to be read by a voice proxy. In her paper, she thoughtfully reflects on her own disability and how current constructions of access by institutions makes it very difficult for her to negotiate the (s)paces of academic life. As she writes, “I like to think that providing access involves more than checking off a list of practical accommodations, though these practical matters are incredibly important. Access also involves a way of thinking about the world that challenges us to imagine how another body, another self, experiences it.” She concluded her presentation with three suggestions for broadening and rethinking the (s)paces of academic work: a) Flexibly configured jobs (e.g., shared positions; dignified, stable, part-time positions); b) Manageable conferences (more smaller, regional conferences?); c) Broad and ongoing conversations about access and universal design (why is access seen as just a technical, ‘retrofit’ issue?). Taking up Lindgren’s challenge, Margaret Price drew from a survey of various CCCC attendees about ways that the conference itself could broaden access. A few of the recommendations she suggested included: 1) a more navigable online schedule, provided well in advance; 2) more funding for sign-language interpreters; 3) a space in which to lie down during the day (to alleviate fatigue); 4) coordinated regional conferences. My favorite, however, follows both Price and Lindgren’s presentations: “A culture of exploration and interest around accessibility, so that it is defined not as something to ‘take care of’ or as a ‘special issue,’ but rather as an ongoing topic that can transform the accessibility of CCCC for all participants.” And indeed, it is not just our conferences and academic paces that need rethinking in terms of accessibility. The other participants in this workshop raised questions about the accessibility of classrooms and various rhetorical and technological sites. Participating in a set of roundtables centered on conversations about the people by and for whom access is constructed, Amy Vidali discussed “accommodation letters,” letters written by the institution and given to teachers to help them make appropriate adjustments to their teaching and classroom organization for their students with disabilities. One issue Vidali raised about these letters had to do with the way such accommodation letters fail to communicate the full dimensions of access, since they do not discuss why accommodations need to be made, just that they should be done, while also denying the student agency in determining their own accommodations. A deeper issue may have to do with the way that such accommodations follow a metaphor Dolmage described as “retrofit”—the accommodations are retrofitted for individual students rather than enabling teachers to employ “universal design” principles which benefit all the students involved. Tonya Stremlau furthered conversation about “retrofit” by raising concerns about the ethics of “reluctant accommodation.” Some teachers may resist or not want to make changes to their classroom or teaching. For instance, teachers might refer a student to another classroom or urge the student to go elsewhere to get the accommodation they need. In such cases, is access really possible? And moreover, what are our responsibilities as teachers, and classroom designers, to make all spaces available to all people? As Stremlau argued, much of the reluctance to make accommodation may have to do with fear—of the amount of work involved, of our own inadequacies as teachers in making such accommodations, of weakening standards and intellectual rigor. Yet, this work cannot be ignored if we want academic spaces to be inclusive ones. Other barriers to accessibility are constructed through language. Engaging a discussion of a rhetoric of low standards for d/Deaf students, Paige Franklin raised awareness of the dimensions of rhetorical access, arguing that such persistent and prevalent talk about low standards can make more difficult the project of making our teaching—and higher standards—fully accessible to students. The result of such talk is a consignment to failure, a reluctance to involve students in a project of more fully realizing their potential for learning and engagement. Such rhetorical access is also technologically constructed, as Michael Salvo discussed how visual images are made accessible to blind and visually-impaired people who use information provided by the html “alt” tag to get descriptions of visual imagery on the website. Salvo pointed out that many such descriptions do nothing to help a visually impaired person get more information about the imagery, and argues for reconsidering how these descriptors are written. Consider, for instance, the difference between “alt=photo: Leonard P. Zakim Bridge, a brand new landmark in Boston, Massachusetts.” versus one which adds the following descriptive language: “. . . symbolizing the connection made between Boston and Cambridge much as Boston-IA seeks to enable all users to access information on the internet.” The second tag allows visually-impaired users of the website to “access” embedded information in the image itself; in the first, being told that it is a bridge says little about what the image means or why it is there. Pushpa Parekh articulated what she called a “technology of flexability” in which accessibility is flexibly, and reflexibly framed through a multi-modal conception of disability. Arguing for a rich and dynamically–conceived frame through which access and disability can be articulated, Parekh described how her use of web-design and multimedia technology in her classroom facilitated students’ reconceptualization of the spaces, resources, literacies, and identities people use as they move through the world. At the conclusion of the workshop, Cynthia Lewiecki-Wilson led participants through an end-of-workshop wrap-up and reflection, having participants record notes and thoughts onto large posters which were displayed prominently through the workshop. In all, this workshop focused in important, productive ways upon ways that concepts of accessibility can bear continued rethinking, as well as a continued move towards principles of universal design in order to take seriously a commitment to enabling access for all members of the university population. Perhaps the foremost point made during this conversation had to do with the way that such conversations should not be one-time occurrences, but must be a sustained effort by all involved to persist in making such spaces, technologies, and people accessible to all. |
Previous Message