Fall Town Hall Highlights: Insights from Disability Researchers and Key Issues for Faculty

As Executive Director Stephanie W. Cawthon, PhD, welcomed online attendees to the national Townhall on September 26, she reiterated the National Disability Center’s goal for these twice-a-year events: To spark a dialogue with stakeholders and people throughout the nation. 

“I’m very excited to have the opportunity to share this experience with you — to have the chance to learn what you think about what’s happening and what we have planned,” said Dr. Cawthon at the outset. 

The Townhall’s agenda included a brief review of the Center’s first-year accomplishments and second-year plans, followed by the event’s highlight — a moderated panel discussion to learn first-hand insights about disability research in postsecondary education — followed by a sneak peek of (and a chance for input on) research on faculty planned in 2025.  

An Incredible Team Effort in Year One 

“Year One was outstanding. We met our goals, and it was an incredible team effort,” said Dr. Cawthon. 

In Year One, the research goal was to better understand the disabled students’ perspective, their accessibility options, and their experience as a disabled person on campus. Toward that goal, the Center’s studies in Year One focused primarily on students, including:

• A new research measure of campus access, which will be released soon. 
• An extensive interview project with disabled students to understand the different types of intersectional experiences that students from a variety of backgrounds and disabilities have. The coding for that study is happening now. 

Townhall Polls Help Guide Center Efforts 

“At our spring Townhall, the polls were a revelation. To get your immediate feedback like that was a major shift for us in terms of how we think about our work,” said Dr. Cawthon. 

The first poll of the Fall Townhall asked, “What year-one [Center] activity is most valuable to you?”

The overwhelming majority — more than half of attendees — voted for the development of a campus accessibility measure.

The next top vote-getter for most valuable Center activity was learning the details from the student interview project, followed by understanding disabled students in community college, insights from research and accessibility reports, and online information from the website, newsletter, and social media.

Looking Ahead to Year Two 

“In Year Two, we’re focusing on our Campus Accessibility Spotlight Series, which communicates what initiatives and programs campus administrators are trying to do to improve accessibility on their campuses. They highlight the innovative work that managers, faculty members, and campus leaders are doing to advocate for and support students with disabilities, plus we share strategies for how others can replicate those efforts on their own campuses,” said Dr. Cawthon. 

Other major launches for Year Two are the Center’s online learning initiative, which kicked off on October 15 with the free webcast “Disability on Campus” The Latest Findings Higher Ed Needs to Know,” and the Learning Hub on our website. 

The Learning Hub is the go-to spot for every resource and report the Center produces — easily filtered by resource type, topic, or audience — including research reviews. 

Panel: Bringing the First Research Review to Life

Dr. Cawthon introduced the event’s panel, who are the authors of the first recently-published research review, Disabled Students in U.S. Postsecondary Education, to share their deep dive into the review’s research and other insights. 

The panelists:

• Maura Borrego, PhD, Faculty Cadre Member | E. P. Schoch Professor in Engineering | Professor in Mechanical Engineering and STEM Education at The University of Texas at Austin
• Ryan A. Mata, MA, Doctoral Research Affiliate | Doctoral Candidate in the Department of Educational Psychology at The University of Texas at Austin

“I made a career change when I finished up my PhD, and I’ve been doing education research exclusively for about 20 years,” said Dr. Borrego in her self-introduction. “If you know anything about STEM, you know those are not very welcoming or inclusive environments. We value things like thinking really quickly on our feet and putting in really long hours, maybe standing in the lab. And all of those things are not very inclusive to many different kinds of people, but those are certainly ableist norms that we have in STEM fields. And so my motivation is to make things better. I didn’t have a great experience when I was a student. I want things to be better for all the people that come behind.”

The Research Review Process 

The first question for the panelists: Describe the research review process and what that looked like for each of you. What did it make you think about? How did you do it? And what advice might you have for those researchers and people who are thinking about their own research translations?

Dr. Borrego’s advice was to know your audience. Think clearly about who it is that you’re speaking to when you’re writing anything — a research review, or a translation document, or any of those things. Where does your audience get their information from? What arguments might they find most persuasive if you want to get them to change how they do things? And what evidence might they want to see to help convince them to change?

“I’m personally partial to faculty, studying faculty members and trying to get them to change how they do things,” said Dr. Borrego. “I still place students at the center, and I want to advocate for students, and we collect data from students about their interactions with faculty members, for example, requesting accommodations. However, I do think a lot of the change needs to come from the faculty members. They need to be aware of what they’re doing and how they could do better with students.” 

Ryan A. Mata agreed, and he added that the diverse range of broad audiences, including non-academics, should be considered. 

“As academics, making our work not only available but also digestible, accessible, and even visually appealing are all important parts of bridging this gap I see between academic spaces and what actually makes it out to our stakeholder groups, including other educators and administrators, policymakers, and families,” said Mata. 

Mata also pointed out the challenge that every detail seems important, especially for him as a disabled student.

“You only have so much space and so much attention. There’s a curation process that happens, and I have my own biases for that from my own lived experience. It’s important that we acknowledge that what we select is important, but it also says something when we do not include certain forms of information. I also want to make sure that things are accurate and up to date because we know that the landscape of higher education is changing,” said Mata.

The “Aha” Moments in the Research 

The second question for the panel: In terms of the findings, what themes really caught your attention, and you thought, oh, this is critical to know, or what jumped out at you as so valuable that you included it in the review?

Mata said that the first thing that he noticed was that the narrative about disability in higher education is very centered on enrollment — in particular, enrollment statistics from the government, which rely on institutional reporting and national surveys for financial aid. 

“What we see broadly is decades of increased enrollment statistics and increased representation in higher ed across different types of institutions. And yet, there are some gaps between enrollment and then persistence, degree achievement, and then eventually life after college in terms of labor force participation. What’s interesting about that pattern is that there’s a key difference between the strides that we’ve made in getting to college versus what we are doing to help disabled students get through college,” said Mata. “We as researchers need to start looking at other forms of data and other signifiers of what it means to succeed in higher education.” 

Getting a foot in the door is just the first step on the journey of higher education. 

“That’s the thing: it’s just the first step. And so institutions really need to focus on how they’re supporting disabled students. Then, take a deeper dive into those forms of support — the academic forms of support and also social forms of support. The latter can be very helpful for disabled undergraduates in terms of fostering a sense of belonging or relatedness to other folks on their campus or in their program.” 

Mata also pointed out that the disclosure of disability could be an entire research review topic on its own. 

“Disclosure is a complex, personal decision and might not be feasible or comfortable for all students. So, we should really be focusing on how we can make the entire environment more universally supportive so that students can get that full college experience of learning and growth without needing to jump through hoops,” said Mata. 

Dr. Borrego agreed with Mata that this is just the start, and there are so many more research reviews needed to flesh out the whole picture. 

“My big ‘aha’ moment in going through this process was realizing just how poor our data is on students with disabilities in higher education. I kind of knew that going in, but really thinking through it—if we don’t have good data, if we can’t even identify who these students are, then we’re not going to have a clear understanding of their outcomes or what’s actually happening on the ground,” said Dr. Borrego. 

“The kicker is that we may never get perfect numbers. There are structural barriers that prevent us from getting accurate counts. For example, a lot of students are just coming to terms with their disability during college. They might not fully understand that they have a disability or know that they can register for accommodations.” 

Stigma is another significant barrier to disability disclosure. 

“Personally, I’m comfortable saying I’m managing depression, but when I come across a form that asks if I identify as having a disability, I hesitate,” said Dr. Borrego. 

Another significant barrier is the accommodations request process. 

“Even if a student is comfortable disclosing that information on a survey, only about 50% of those who identify as disabled actually register with their institution’s disability services office. And once they do, they still have to renegotiate accommodations with new professors every semester. That process can be really exhausting and discourages many students from even trying. We’ve heard from students that, unfortunately, some just don’t bother anymore because they’ve had so many negative experiences with faculty or administrators,” said Dr. Borrego. 

That’s where the system is broken,” she said. “We need to move away from putting all the burden on the students to secure their accommodations. The conversation should really shift to how we can make higher education more accessible overall.” 

Can Disability Cultural Centers Support Students? 

A question for the panel from the audience related to the social aspects of supporting students and whether disability cultural centers can support students socially.

“Yes, absolutely,” replied Mata. “But the availability of resources like disability cultural centers varies greatly from one campus to another. In some of my interviews, students talked about having access to robust Disability Resource Centers that also provide social support, while others only have very basic accommodations offices that are focused purely on compliance.” 

What Mata heard from students is that having a designated space, like a disability cultural center, where they can connect socially with peers who have shared experiences is incredibly beneficial. 

“These centers provide a community and a space where students can engage without having to go through the formal, often bureaucratic processes associated with accommodations. It helps students feel seen and supported beyond just the academic context,” said Mata. “However, not every campus has these centers. In those cases, it’s essential to make other social spaces and events on campus universally accessible. That way, students don’t need a separate space to feel included—they can participate in the same activities as everyone else.” 

He added, “When accessibility is baked into all events, it reduces the need for students to seek out specialized spaces.” 

New Research to Focus on Faculty 

Upon the conclusion of the panel, Dr. Cawthon explained that the Center is shifting its research focus in Year Two to understand faculty experiences and perspectives around accessibility. A new survey, which was developed to align with the campus accessibility measures worked on in Year One, will be sent to faculty members nationwide in early 2025. 

“After the survey, we’ll conduct follow-up interviews to get a deeper understanding, much like we did with the student interviews. This time, we’ll be engaging faculty from diverse backgrounds, fields, and levels of experience with accessibility. We’ll be sharing those findings in the fall of 2025 as part of our ongoing research agenda,” said Dr. Cawthon. 

She then sought Townhall input on which areas they thought should be emphasized in the faculty survey. The poll asked attendees: Which topics do you think are the most critical for us to explore with faculty? 

Attitudes about disability and accommodations was by far the number one response. 

“That’s really interesting, and it’s something that we often hear—people don’t always realize how much their attitude can impact so many different things, especially in how it affects students. Without a positive shift in attitude, problem-solving really takes a back seat,” said Dr. Cawthon. 

The second most popular response was mental health and how faculty respond to crises or emergencies. 

“This is a crucial area where faculty need more guidance on how to handle situations in real-time—like, who do you call, what kind of flexibility can you offer, and how do you respond to a student’s mental health needs on the spot?” said Dr. Cawthon. 

The next most important area was the inclusion of disabled perspectives in course materials. 

“Representation truly matters. When disabled individuals are not visible in the culture of academia, it creates additional barriers to feeling included. Spotlighting disabled voices, successes, and contributions can make a huge difference,” said Dr. Cawthon. 

And lastly, there were quite a few votes for how faculty handle letters of accommodation. 

“This aligns with what we’ve heard from students in interviews. They often report two very different experiences: either the faculty are incredibly supportive and willing to problem-solve, or they’re dismissive and unwilling to engage at all. It seems to be quite binary, and that’s a challenge we want to address in our research,” said Dr. Cawthon. 

She thanked Townhall attendees for their feedback to refine the faculty survey and closed the Townhall with the reminder to save the date for the next Townhall on February 20, 2025.