Academics with disabilities compare notes on campus accommodations

A group of academics who took part in an event at King's University College on Friday said there's still more work to be done when it comes to accommodating the unique needs of students with disabilities.

The National Educational Association of Disabled Students (NEADS) and Western University's Society of Graduate Students held a mini-conference with a focus on increasing accessibility and accommodations for disabled students in post-secondary education.

The meeting included two separate panels: one of professors, and another of students.

CBC News asked some of the student participants to share their stories about how disabilities have shaped and challenged them during their academic careers, and what needs to be done to improve student accessibility. 

Mohler is a research consultant with NEADS. 

She lives with a visible, visual disability (glaucoma) and much of her academic and professional work as a consultant is focused on accessibility issues. Mohler said post-graduate students with disabilities are often expected to perform without accommodations at the same level as able-bodied students. 

"We hear a lot of discourse about how accommodations are seen as giving somebody an upper hand ... as opposed to just levelling the playing field," she said. 

Mohler said grad students often struggle to access funding that would help them to publish their work and share it with peers through travel. 

"A conference like this opens up space to have difficult conversations and disrupt norms in higher education about how, where and when we learn," she said, adding the conference also provides a platform for students to network with peers who've faced similar challenges.

Rye is a library and information sciences student at Western who calls herself a "triple threat" because she lives with cerebral palsy, a spacial learning disability and a mental illness. 

Rye is a wheelchair user and said physical barriers to accessing spaces have been a constant challenge throughout her time as a student. She said there's often a lack of accessibility accommodation for graduate students compared to the supports that exist for undergraduate programs.

"There's not much communication between accessible education and my program and so I end up having to coordinate that myself," she said. "We are willing to learn, we are able to learn, we just need accommodations." 

Rye regularly uses a shuttle service that allows students with mobility challenges to travel between King's, Western and Brescia. One problem she's run into: The service doesn't operate in the summer.

"It's a big issue for graduate students," she said.