Finding Space Podcast

JUSTIN DAVIDSON: So I came to campus, and I started receiving accommodations letters. And I performed and acted on them as I thought I was supposed to, but I didn't have any administrative guidance from above. And so now, being a faculty liaison, I get to help other faculty not feel that way and help impart information so that faculty feel supported about this.

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MARISELLA RODRIGUEZ: You're listening to Finding Space, a podcast where UC Berkeley students, educators, and staff from the disability community tell their stories and call the campus community in on acts of advocacy and disability justice. This month, for our second episode, we're sharing insights from two Berkeley faculty who serve as faculty liaisons to the Disabled Students Program-- Jonah Levy and Justin Davidson. We met in fall 2023 to learn from each other as colleagues and share our experiences supporting faculty in their teaching.

[BLUE DOT SESSIONS, "GOLDEN GRASS"]

TARA MASON: Hello, everyone. My name is Tara Mason, and I am the universal design for learning consultant in the Center for Teaching and Learning.

MARISELLA RODRIGUEZ: Thanks, Tara. Hi everyone. My name's Marisella Rodriguez. My pronouns are she/her, and I'm the inclusive teaching manager at the Center for Teaching and Learning. And I'll popcorn it over to Jonah next.

JONAH LEVY: Hi. I'm Jonah Levy. I'm a professor in the Political Science Department and one of two DSP faculty liaisons.

JUSTIN DAVIDSON: And I am two of two faculty liaisons. So I'm Justin Davidson. I'm a professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese.

TARA MASON: I want to learn a little bit more about what has surprised you the most on your journey and your role as a DSP faculty liaison.

JUSTIN DAVIDSON: So for me personally, I have a background in K-12 education. Before grad school and all that, I had my heart set on becoming a high school teacher. So I knew a lot about the K-12 special education system. And then when I was a graduate student, though-- and I'm sure I taught, but I wasn't necessarily involved with DSP to the extent that I obviously am now here. And so I came to campus. And for me, what was most surprising was that there was no mandatory orientation about all things DSP and accommodations related. So I expected there to be accommodations. Again, I was coming from the high school system. But I expected more of a guiding hand about how it works in the university system and, certainly, how it works in Berkeley. And I suppose I didn't really get that at the start. So I was interested in it. I started receiving accommodations letters. And I suppose I performed and acted on them as I thought I was supposed to, but I didn't have any administrative guidance from above. And so now, being a faculty liaison, I feel like now I get to help other faculty not feel that way and help impart information so that faculty feel supported about this. There isn't one standardized teacher training system for faculty. Everyone comes to Berkeley as a professor, either from being a grad student or from being faculty elsewhere. And it's all different. That's what surprised me the most. And the journey has really taught me that with such a big university and with such a heterogeneous faculty, in terms of their prior experience, it's taught me that this position is really important because, as faculty, we really are responsible for upholding the law when it comes to providing accommodations. And so if faculty don't have the support and the training to help them do that, then it can be a real problem.

JONAH LEVY: Yeah. Like Justin-- and maybe I'll put this even a little more crudely-- I was shocked by how little I knew about disability accommodations. And I've been a member of several university commissions and the Chancellor's Commission on Disability, and I co-chaired a panel on affordability and accessibility of course materials. And I have a lot of administrative experience. But when it comes to actually implementing disability accommodations, I'm really embarrassed by how many things I got wrong before I started learning about this on the job. And relatedly, what surprised me perhaps the most is how little the faculty know and, as Justin said, how little guidance is provided. And these are-- they're legal issues. They can be quite technical. They're implementation directives from our campus or from UCOP. There are changing interpretations and legislation. So this is not the kind of information that people have by virtue of being smart professors. It really is specialized and changing, yet impacts the lives of professors and students in a very fundamental way. So, like Justin, I'm hoping to reduce that level of unawareness. And like Justin, I hope that at some point there'll be mandatory training so that faculty don't feel like they're just making it up or don't know what to do or don't understand the rules and why DSP is pushing back against them on things.

MARISELLA RODRIGUEZ: Thanks so much for sharing both of your experiences. And it sounds like there's this shared theme of seeking out training and wanting that knowledge so that you can do better by your students.

JUSTIN DAVIDSON: Yeah. I volunteered for this position because I was really interested in being able to dialogue with faculty across campus and basically work toward all things in support of providing students with accommodations. So the relationship is significant because there's so, so many faculty across campus. And before the role existed-- it's still relatively new-- it was a ton of faculty across campus communicating with DSP and DAC staff. It was always faculty talking to staff and staff talking to faculty. And so I was really excited to take part in this role because now we-- Jonah and I-- serve as liaisons. So as faculty, we can be the bridge between faculty and staff and work together in order to make sure that everyone feels supported on campus.

JONAH LEVY: Yes. And I would add to Justin's remarks that there's been a lot of ill will and misunderstanding between some faculty and some DSP specialists. And so the idea is to have a buffer or an intermediary who can hopefully smooth over some of those misunderstandings and create a more collaborative climate between faculty and DSP specialists.

MARISELLA RODRIGUEZ: The way that you're describing it sounds like such a powerful role to have on campus to-- as Justin, you put it-- be these bridge builders together. And I'm wondering what that bridge building looks like in some of the details. So what do you do in your role? How do you help faculty liaise with other campus partners, like DSP and DAC colleagues, as faculty yourselves?

JUSTIN DAVIDSON: So a lot of what we do involves emails. But thankfully, one of the more fun parts of the role is actually going and meeting faculty. So, for example, there have been several faculty meetings in different departments across campus that Jonah and I, along with Steve Johnston from DAC, have been invited to to give an introductory DSP, DAC talk. And so that's been a means for Joan and I to meet faculty from all sorts of departments across campus and also Zoom meetings. So Jonah and I have biweekly meetings with Carolyn in DSP. And then we also have at least monthly meetings with Steve, as I said before, in DAC. So Jonah and I are constantly in communication with folks in DSP and DAC. And then to the extent that we can, that we're invited, we try and make ourselves present in all the departments that we can so that we get everyone more aware of our roles. And that's the initial bridge there.

JONAH LEVY: And, of course, arguably, our biggest responsibility is to meet with faculty, typically who come to us because they're concerned about an accommodation and don't feel it's feasible or justified. And we listen sympathetically. And sometimes we'll go to DSP and say, the faculty seems to have a point here. And sometimes we explain to the faculty that their understanding may not be entirely accurate and that they do have obligations to accommodate the students and then maybe work with those faculty to find ways to accommodate the students that they can live with as well, that they don't feel impinges on their teaching. And the fact that Justin and I are both professors, like the faculty with whom we meet, also makes it easier for us to come up with solutions.

MARISELLA RODRIGUEZ: What I'm hearing is this signal, this moment of encouragement of your faculty peers to engage with these conversations with the DSP colleague, just to even learn more about what this request might look like in their classroom and come to an agreement, a compromise of sorts, from a DSP colleague who has this legal expertise, this expertise of supporting students in a very particular way, and then the instructor's pedagogical expertise as being the course designer. And I'm so fascinated by your role as DSP liaisons. Because to me, that signals this mission-critical role of peer mentorship-- that you can speak with another instructor and faculty colleague and really have the shared experience that you're both relying on as instructors at Berkeley at this moment in time. And you've spoken a bit about the general sense of common challenges, and I'm wondering if we can shift a little to specifics. And I would love it if you both could share a time when you've supported a peer, a faculty member, to resolve a roadblock that they've had in supporting students in the classroom-- and also how you manage to uphold student voice in that accommodation process, as Justin, you named that that student is quite far removed from the process at key points.

JONAH LEVY: Yeah, I could name a few cases. And it's often, after the fact, they seem really obvious and simple. But in the heat of the moment, they can be a real blocking point. So one case I dealt with was an instructor who gives pop quizzes in their class and didn't want to give the time and a half or extra time to students with accommodations. And again, this is an example of an instructor viewing accommodations as elective rather than legally mandated. And eventually, the solution we came up with was-- the course was the first course of the day in that classroom. And so I proposed, let's have the student come in 5 or 10 minutes earlier and begin the quiz so that they'll finish it at the same time as all the other students, and it won't interrupt the flow of class. So that was an example of just a very simple, get away from the clash of power and I'm right, you're right-- and just like, here's an obvious solution. Another case was a student who was getting cancer treatment in Boston and was keeping up with their assignments and wanted to take the exam for the class remotely. And the instructor was terrified that the student would cheat and was unwilling to do any kind of remote exam until we found a proctor who could administer the exam in the hospital in Boston so that the instructor could feel safe that the student was not engaging in any academic dishonesty. Another case I had recently was, a student who was being stalked had to leave campus, for understandable reasons, and went back home to be with her parents and didn't want to continue the semester on the Berkeley campus. And most of her professors were fine with remote arrangements. One professor said that she would have to get a C for participation because she wouldn't be participating in the class anymore. And the solution we arrived at was just she would do some alternative assignment, like write something about the readings for the week and send it to the professor, as an alternative to classroom participation. And that's a more general form of adjustment that one can imagine for students with anxiety, who have difficulty speaking up in class-- that we can think of other ways to assess the participation of a student. And once faculty get beyond the, Is she going to get credit for not doing work? blockage and say, no, she's going to do a different kind of work-- that generally is something that everybody can live with.

JUSTIN DAVIDSON: That's great. And I'll just add something that I've gone through in my instruction personally as a challenge that I'm really happy to have overcome. Life is so much better now. [LAUGHS] So I don't know, two, three years ago and prior, whenever I had students that required alternative testing conditions-- so, for example, extended time or a reduced distraction environment, et cetera, et cetera-- I was always personally proctoring the exams. So I would coordinate with every single student and meet them in my office and sit there and proctor. And so every time I had an exam, it just meant more and more time proctoring. My classes at that time were only 25 students, but now they're at least 50. And there are some faculty with 1,000-student lectures. So what I realized was feasible-- and, for sure, if you're interested, talk to Tara-- I moved toward a more universal design component when it came to my testing. So I no longer offer in-class, timed assessments. Instead, everything I offer is take-home. So that did require, on my end at the beginning, a real shift in looking at the content of my exams and removing pieces of it that were, at the time, rote memorization and instead rethinking the kinds of things that I could test if folks had access to notes and my instruction materials. And so I redesigned all of my tests, and now all of the exams that I give are take-home. And so that's made my life a lot easier, because I no longer have to deal with any kind of proctoring whatsoever. And also, it's really been helpful, I think, just for the assessment process. Because I realized that there were a lot of questions that I used to ask students that were the type of question where, sure, the ones you study for it, you memorize it, you write it on the test, and then you forget it the moment the test is over. And so I switched to a lot more application based, real engagement with the material. I teach linguistics courses. So rather than asking for students of definitions of terms, now the entirety of my courses are now about problem solving and having students exercise linguistic abilities. So that for me has been really transformative. And I highly recommend it. Go talk to Tara.

TARA MASON: I love that. That's awesome. What I was thinking about as I was listening to both of you is that there were just so many creative solutions that you both are just unearthing all the time in your work with your faculty colleagues. And so we're going to shift gears a little bit and talk specifically about some of the challenges in supporting students with disabilities, maybe from a bird's eye, maybe from some specific examples. I can relate to Justin, having a K-12 background myself as a special education teacher and teacher preparation professional. And also, like you both have talked about, I have lots of experience with implementing accommodations that needed more problem solving to meet students' needs. And so I'm very interested in how we can keep improving our supports for students when they're needed. So what do you feel like are some common challenges you observe faculty face when working towards inclusive and accessible practices? JUSTIN DAVIDSON: Yeah. So I feel like one of the issues that can come up a lot of times is simply one of time frame. So the thing is, in an ideal world, students well before the semester will have gone to DSP, gotten their specialist, gotten their accommodations letter worked out, and then that appears for the instructor before the course begins. But the truth of the matter is, that timeline is ideal and probably not the most common. But even more than that, accommodations can change throughout the semester. These are fluid. So, for example, the nature of someone's disability might be variable and might change across the semester. So you might have an accommodations letter at the beginning that then needs to be modified because something happened with the student and their disability and situations change. So I think one of the common challenges that the faculty face in providing accommodations can just be the time frame. So a sort of extreme case would be something where-- say that differently accessible materials need to be provided for a student-- so, for example, closed captioning on sound clips. So that requires a lot of coordination beforehand. And so if an accommodation that involves that kind of level of preparation happens in the middle of a semester, much less at the beginning, faculty can feel caught off guard and not necessarily know what to do. So that's why it's so important for them to immediately reach out to the DSP specialist. And they're the ones who will immediately start providing them with all the support structures on campus to help work toward making those accommodations feasible within the time frame. Another typical time frame issue is, for example, a student might have an accommodation for an excused absence. And so say that they have a flare-up of their disability and they miss an exam. And it might be some sort of exam that's difficult for the instructor to make up. Maybe it's difficult to find space for them to make it up. Or if that student needs special testing conditions, it might be difficult to do that within a certain time frame. Students aren't necessarily the best advocates for themselves, and they might not always inform the instructor that there's an upcoming test, I have an accommodation for time and a half. How are we going to work this out? So, admittedly, faculty need to be on the ball for the students that have accommodations, particularly as they relate to time-sensitive, stuff like testing and providing caption materials, et cetera. And so, again, communication between the instructor and the DSP specialist is really important to make sure that things flow as smoothly as they can. It's not always an ideal scenario, but the DSP specialist is really good at helping an instructor figure out a solution that they might not in the moment of hectic chaos, middle of finals week, be able to come up with on their own.

JONAH LEVY: Yeah. I would say, building on what Justin says, that one of the big problems is that faculty often regard DSP accommodations as sort of voluntary or something to do if it's not too much trouble or if it doesn't conflict with how they like to do things. And that can manifest itself in a number of ways. The most common are policies announced in the syllabus that say, no late assignments will be accepted under any conditions, or no makeup tests will be given under any conditions. A syllabus cannot supersede a student's civil rights. And if a student has a right to make up exams or to extensions in the event of a disability-related problem, the faculty member can't just say, well, sorry, we don't give credit for that. Another challenge that often comes up is, in relations between the faculty and the DSP specialist, the faculty member will sometimes get angry at the DSP specialist for forcing them to do X or Y when it's not the DSP specialist that's forcing them to do X or Y. It's the law. It's not the DSP specialist that's saying you have to give up a makeup exam. It's disability law. And sometimes there can be a shoot-the-messenger inclination. But once you explain it to instructors, they usually do get it.

MARISELLA RODRIGUEZ: I am loving the appreciation for DSP and DAC colleagues. It is always fantastic to hear about the great work that our staff colleagues are doing on campus and especially their so, so important role to supporting that student learning experience in and out of the classroom. And we have covered so much already. I feel like I've learned a lot, and I've been on this campus for several years now. I can't imagine what other instructors are learning along the way as well. And I want to pose us with this big question, the big grand finale, which is, what are your tips for faculty to uplift students with disabilities, regardless of technical skills they need to know-- or maybe even resources that they do or do not have at their fingertips that can support our students in their teaching? I'll pause here and throw it to both of you.

JUSTIN DAVIDSON: Right. So my number one tip is, I feel like sometimes we can forget-- Berkeley faculty have a lot of hats that we wear. So we are researchers, by and large. It's an R1 university. We mentor grad students, we mentor undergraduate students, and we teach. And it's that last role there, that last hat of being an educator, that we are employed as educators, that I think sometimes we might devote less attention to. As I said, folks are coming in to being Berkeley instructors with a wide range of experiences prior when it comes to real educational training. So when it comes to uplifting and working with students at Berkeley that require accommodations, remember that as an educator, law aside, I would think that one should really care about wanting to provide everyone with a quality education and remembering that not all students come into the classroom having equal access. So providing accommodations is part of being a good educator. Because what accommodations are there for are to ensure that all students have access, have equal access to the curriculum, to participating at Berkeley. So in providing accommodations and working with DSP, you're making it possible for all students really to be able to be at a more equal playing field when it comes to studying here. Are there more concrete tips? I'm going to put in a plug for Jonah and I, in addition to Steve Johnston and DAC and Carolyn Swalina at the DSP. We worked together to write up a 10point cheat sheet guide to get folks started with 10 immediate tips for working with all things DSP accommodations related. So that website is hosted under the Berkeley Center for Teaching and Learning. Jonah, what else do you got? I'll throw it to you. JONAH LEVY: Well, we also have a second document that we put together that's language to include on syllabi about disability accommodations. And it also gives an understanding of what you can and cannot do with respect to accommodations. So that's also hosted by CTL and could be helpful. In terms of what faculty could do better, I think, as Justin mentioned his practice-- and I've done the same thing, to focus on higher-order learning and less on rote memorization-- is both good pedagogically but also makes it easier to deal with disability accommodations. I think another thing I'd like to see faculty do is to be willing to change practices, even if they've been doing the same thing for many years. And I understand-- I've been doing the same thing for many years in many ways myself-- and the temptation to just say, I don't want to change. This is not my problem-- is strong. But what I try to do generally is change one thing every time I teach a course to try to make it a little more inclusive. And I don't necessarily get there all the way. Sometimes it's language on syllabi. Sometimes it's having a set of evaluations that's more student friendly. Sometimes it's the reading materials I try to make more accessible. And I don't do it all at once, because then I wouldn't do anything. It's too daunting. But moving in the right direction a little bit can be quite helpful. And I think it's important to not view accommodations as somehow an unfair advantage. Or sometimes there's even a belief that it's an unfair advantage for rich kids who got doctors to write them favorable exemptions. These applications are reviewed. And our students with accommodations, by and large, have a much higher proportion of disadvantaged students measured, however you want to measure it, whether it's URM students, low-income students, first in their family to go to college students, LGBTQ students. All of those groups are overrepresented among students with disabilities. So there is something of a misleading understanding for many faculty about who gets these accommodations or how easy it is to get those accommodations. And finally, I would just say to show a little empathy and try to be as inclusive as possible. And when confronted with an accommodation that challenges or that would require you to do something that you haven't done before, maybe try to find a solution, rather than a reason to say no. And it can be tough. And that's an area where Justin and I can potentially help because we do want to make it possible for faculty to not only accommodate students with disabilities but to feel good about how they're doing it and the education they're providing to all their students. And so I think some faculty would find that they feel better about their classes if they make more of an effort to be inclusive and are less concerned about the possibility that someone's cheating or scamming or abusing the disability system and more focused on just helping reduce the barriers.

JUSTIN DAVIDSON: Solid, Jonah. I concur.

TARA MASON: It was so wonderful to sit down with you both. And I really heard teamwork and collaboration come through consistently in your responses, that Berkeley faculty are not alone in trying to figure out solutions to tough accommodation needs that a student might have. They have DSP case managers who are ready to help them and collaborate with them, and they have you to problem solve even the trickiest of situations. I just am so incredibly appreciative. Are there any other final thoughts that you want to leave us with?

JUSTIN DAVIDSON: If you feel like your department would benefit from a visit from Jonah, myself, anyone at DSP, Steve Johnston at DAC, reach out. We love doing that, and that seems to be really, really effective.

JONAH LEVY: Yeah. I think it's very challenging for faculty, and the number of cases has gone up so much. And we're in a university with limited resources. So many faculty do feel kind of besieged and overwhelmed. And this is yet another thing that they're supposed to figure out how to do, and it's not easy. And it may even challenge their teaching, which is kind of central to their identity. So--

JUSTIN DAVIDSON: And it may not be sufficiently recognized on merit, reviews, promotion, all that game. Yeah.

JONAH LEVY: But there are resources. You're not alone. We want to help you. The goal is not to make life a misery for faculty. It's to ensure that students civil rights are upheld but in a way that faculty can live with and can still teach in a way that with which they're comfortable. And while there are obligations, there's also a lot of room for negotiation. We haven't used the phrase interactive process yet, but that's sort of the buzzword, which means going back and forth among stakeholders to try to arrive at a solution that everyone can agree upon. And so faculty shouldn't feel that they're all alone. There are lots of people would be happy to help.

JUSTIN DAVIDSON: Especially us too.

JONAH LEVY: Yes.

[BLUE DOT SESSIONS, "GOLDEN GRASS"]

MARISELLA RODRIGUEZ: If you found this conversation helpful and would like to hear more from Jonah and Justin and their top tips for ways faculty can uplift students with disabilities, please follow the link in our show notes to hear more. Finding Space was produced by Tracie Allen and Stephanie Mackley in Research, Teaching, and Learning, or RTL, with production support from Betsy Greer and Laura Hart in RTL Media. Special thanks to Robert Hold and Melanie Green in RTL Communications and to Oliver O'Reilly, vice provost, and Catherine Cronquist Browning, Assistant Vice Provost and Chief of Staff for Undergraduate Education. Our theme song is Golden Grass by Blue Dot Sessions. If you're inspired to share your story in a future episode, email us. We're at findingspace@berkeley.edu. We'll be back with a new episode next month.