Accessibility continues to be a prevalent issue in higher education and leads to students with disabilities feeling unmotivated and eventually dropping out or switching majors. Students with disabilities have the legal right to receive accommodations that best fit their condition and allow them to conduct their studies without their disability being an impediment. However, most of the time these accommodations tend to not be enough, and their learning experience is not as seamless as that for able students. Similarly, there have been cases where faculty is not as willing to accommodate students as they should. Because of this, students often feel frustrated and feel like there should be other ways in which they are allowed to access the material and be able to graduate without having to face additional barriers. On the other hand, faculty tend to be forgotten when analyzing these issues when in reality they should be an important part of this process. Faculty may intend to act in a helpful manner when accommodating students, but students might not always understand all the considerations they might need to make or faculty might not be aware of the considerations students need to make to be successful in a course.  

This topic has been explored but always from a student’s perspective and not so much from the other perspectives. Examining this topic from multiple stakeholder perspectives also provides us the opportunity to examine whether their considerations underscore elements of empathy when engaging in the accommodations process.   

We seek to understand if and how baseline empathy measures of individuals including faculty, staff and students might relate to their cognitive and emotional predispositions toward accommodations for persons with disabilities, and their specific expectations of each other for actions that are taken by three roles involved in the accommodations process (faculty, staff and students). 

Work is ongoing. Publications are forthcoming.