Opinion | Anything imaginable, but not accessibility

A student embarks on an investigation to find where Chapman succeeds and fails in serving disabled students. Photo courtesy of Katie Reul

In early March of this year, Chapman made masks optional regardless of vaccination status.

Along with this change in rules came a shift in protocol. COVID-19 clearances no longer needed to be filled out unless you were riding the shuttle. Unvaccinated individuals would only need to have one negative test per week instead of two. 

For the 60% of respondents who said they were comfortable with removing the mask mandate, this was excellent news. 

Linley Munson, a junior creative writing major

However, for the remaining portion of the Chapman community, all wasn’t well. What about people who were high-risk? Or immunocompromised? This change disproportionately affects disabled people, after all. 

These worries were compounded further by Chapman’s statement that no area of campus should have stricter regulations than indicated by university policy. Combine that with concerns of phasing out virtual learning and the arrival of an Omicron subvariant earlier this semester, and it’s easy to understand where people are coming from.

Curious to learn more, I decided to speak with members of Chapman Spoonies, a club for students with chronic illnesses, and the university’s Disability Services Office.

Unfortunately, the removal of the mask mandate is far from the first instance of Chapman putting its disabled population on the backburner. Speaking with members of Chapman Spoonies, the exhaustion and desire for more empathy were evident. 

When discussing the change in mask policy, club members raised concerns about how quickly regulations were reduced and questioned how much of Chapman’s decision-making is driven by money and politics. 

One student recalled a time they asked for a Zoom link to a class while experiencing a flare-up of their illness, and the professor said they weren’t allowed to provide one. Instances like these can be especially maddening due to the fact that chronic illnesses make attendance unpredictable.

There was an overwhelming sentiment that changing policy partway through the semester was disingenuous. An immunocompromised student brought up how members of Resident Life and Maintenance aren’t required to wear masks — a fact she discovered after placing a work order in her university-provided housing. 

Despite requesting all maintenance staff be masked and that she be given advance notice before their arrival, the student never received any notification. As a result, she later found out they entered her room unmasked, putting her at risk in her own home. 

I asked members how accessible disability accommodations at Chapman were, and I was met with quite a vocal response as they shared their stories with me. A common theme I noticed was that accommodations are very difficult to get — even with documentation.

For one student, it took over a year to get housing accommodations despite having the required documents. This documentation requirement can be especially tricky for students with disabilities that aren’t outwardly visible. 

According to students, Disability Services, which was described as understaffed and lacking resources, can be inconsistent in how it handles cases; students with similar side effects may be granted drastically different accommodations. One might be granted permission to change an exam date, while another student will be told that that accommodation doesn’t exist. 

The consensus among club members I spoke with about Chapman’s Disability Services Office is that its staff is doing what they can — but never more than that. One student even said individual professors did more in accommodating her than the office.

There was also commentary on the shortcomings of campus accessibility. Students argued that Chapman caters to what’s aesthetically pleasing and does the bare minimum to adhere to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requirements. 

Accessible doors don’t work consistently. Many of the elevators on campus were last inspected in 2018. In Morlan, there aren’t any elevators despite the laundry room being on the second floor. 

Additionally, the ramp leading to the dorms is very windy with many tight turns, making it difficult to navigate with service animals or mobility devices. Similarly, the theft guards by the Rotunda entrance of Leatherby Libraries are also not accessible for wheelchair-users.

Other general complaints were directed at the inaccessibility of campus events like Playfair, where students are not provided chairs and expected to be on their feet for prolonged periods of time. 

Club members also highlighted the institution’s lack of accessibility to the deaf and hard of hearing community through the dissolution of the American Sign Language department due to a supposed lack of demand. Some students reported that professors refused to put on live transcripts of Zoom calls, after multiple requests to do so, despite having access to the feature. Even in Dodge College of Film and Media Arts, club members pointed out how most film screenings don’t have subtitles.

One student suggested that, in addition to the university addressing these challenges experienced by the deaf community, a class be taught on deaf culture and history.

In spite of Chapman’s push for diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), disability is still often left out of the conversation. This is evident through the university’s limited course offerings centered around disability in comparison to the extent classes are offered about other minority groups.

But the reality is, disabled people make up the largest minority group in America; and it’s the only group you can join at any time without notice. This is evident in class selection and the limited offerings focusing on disability to the same extent as other minority groups.

More than anything, students expressed that Chapman needs to take the time to listen to them without being dismissive. After all, students pay a lot of money to attend Chapman, so they ought to adhere to the personalized education referenced in the university’s mission statement.

I’m far from the first person to reach out to Spoonies for comment on accommodations, and it’s clear that having to repeatedly express the same frustrations can be draining. 

Following a lively interview with students, I spoke with the director of Disability Services, Jason McAlexander. 

I’d only set foot in the department for the first time to schedule the interview prior to my conversation with Spoonies. Stepping inside, the first thing that hit me was the size of the room: it was practically a broom closet, somehow accommodating three people. It feels ironic that an office geared toward disabled students isn’t very accessible for mobility devices.

According to McAlexander, there are around 1,100 students registered with the office, although there are probably more out there. 

When asked about remote learning, McAlexander mentioned how it conflicts with Chapman’s interactive education beliefs. Despite that, the department will advocate for a student needing remote learning despite a professor’s protests. 

The department’s job is to ensure that professors aren’t declining remote learning requests out of discrimination against disability. However, not all classes function the same remotely as they would in person, and the ADA can’t force professors to allow one student to Zoom. In these scenarios, alternative assignments are a possible solution for a student to show mastery over a topic.

Since returning to campus, however, requests for remote instruction have decreased with questions about masking policy following suit. The department expected to hear more concerns following the policy change but they haven’t heard many comments from students on the subject. 

The challenge lies in course design and how Chapman’s interactive teaching philosophy conflicts with the needs of high-risk and immune-compromised students. The goal of getting these students back into the community post-pandemic without putting them at risk is obstructed by Chapman’s stripping of its regulations and desire to mandate a unified learning experience. 

Compared to a large school, Chapman isn’t designed to do things online. To accommodate the volume of requests, there’d need to be increased staffing and space. However, it’s challenging for Chapman to grow physically while simultaneously adapting to the increasing level of support needed by students.

Through conversations with both parties, there seems to be a communication struggle between administration, Disability Services and students. But both Spoonies and McAlexander had similar things to say about harmful perceptions surrounding disability — like the idea that a disability is something that needs to be fixed.

Rather than trying to “fix” an individual, it’d be much more impactful to make improvements to the system. We should aspire for universal design from the get-go, rather than as a later revision. We should offer all books online, so blind people can listen to them. We should guarantee all videos have subtitles for people who are deaf or hard of hearing. 

We should remove barriers, so that accommodations are no longer needed and instead proactively built into the system’s design.