Finding Space Podcast

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.

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RYAN MANRIQUEZ: Once I moved into the hallway, I immediately realized that I did not have a way out. It was probably the most terrifying moment outside of a hospital in my life, I'll say. And I remember just hearing the alarms blare and blare and blare. And it wasn't just the threat to my physical safety. It was the mental aspect of seeing your peers evacuate without you, that feeling of being left behind. TRACIE ALLEN: 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. Hi, everyone. I'm Tracie Allen. I'm the Access and Innovation Strategist at Research, Teaching, and Learning. I'm so glad you're here. Finding Space is a project close to my heart, created to amplify disability justice and reimagine what access, equity, and belonging can look like in higher ed. Last episode, we explored leading culture from where you are and the power of collective care. Today, we continue that conversation with alum Ryan Manriquez. That community support is collective care in action, shaped by everyday choices, not just policy. My name is Tracie Allen, she/her pronouns. I am the Access and Innovation Strategist at the Center for Teaching and Learning at UC Berkeley. RYAN MANRIQUEZ: Hey there. My name is Ryan Manriquez. I use he/they pronouns. I'm a recent graduate of UC Berkeley. I just got my master's in public policy degree from the Goldman School, right up the hill. And I'm a physically disabled student. I live with spinal muscular atrophy, which is a rare neuromuscular disease. And I'm independently using a power wheelchair right now. And I think my disability journey living with a rare disease has really transformed over the last decade. And it's a direct result of so many things that are interconnected with the university. My rare disease did not have a treatment until 2017. There was a breakthrough with the treatment called nusinersen, or Spinraza is the label name. But that was developed through NIH research. My advocacy and academia journey didn't start here at the Goldman School. It actually started up the road at the University Farm, otherwise known as UC Davis, where, in 2020, that was the year that Crip Camp came out. And I got to learn more about the history of what the epicenter of the disability rights movement was in Berkeley, California, and on the university campus. And that made me think about a lot of the work that we were trying to and create the community that we were trying to build. So I grew up in a town of about 30,000 people, and I was the only physically disabled student in a high school of over 2,000 students. TRACIE ALLEN: Wow. RYAN MANRIQUEZ: And back then, I did not have any compass for disability history, disability identity, or the community that I was a part of. And it wasn't until I got to Davis that I started learning more. That was a big theme during my time there and still is today, is the theme of representation. But when we're talking about disability justice, disability justice, principle number two of leadership by those most impacted. And during that time, I had peers come to me, colleagues in the Senate saying, hey, Ryan, we think you'd be a great candidate to run for ASUCD president, for student body president. And my jaw hit the floor. And I doubted myself quite a lot. We had a lot of imposter syndrome. I said, how do you think I could accurately represent 30,000 students when I just got here six months ago? I was a transfer student. But then that theme of representation came crawling back in the back of my mind. Who better to represent students during that time of the pandemic than someone who's immunocompromised themselves? But I knew after undergrad that I still needed that community, and I still had more in the tank in terms of advocacy work to do. I remember writing in my application to the Goldman School that I didn't just want to experience the rich history of disability rights, but I wanted to contribute to it. And following that, I was accepted. And it was a no-brainer that I was going to come to this campus to contribute to that history. TRACIE ALLEN: I love that. I remember when you invited me to the class, the lecture for Emily Nusbaum. And I thought, well, yeah, I'm going to go and check it out because it was the first time you and I were going to meet in person. And I went to that class, and it was just amazing to see how everybody was working together. And then, after that, you invited me to the DCC national symposium. And I think that the captioning wasn't working, called out to the community, and was like, yeah, we need to do collective access. And I had never seen that happen before. And I think it's very tied to what you were talking about, community support, because the essence of that is looking at the needs of others. Wow, why don't we do that even in meetings? You know what I mean? Why is that not just something that's normal for us to be like, wait, Ryan's here. What does he need? Tracie's here. Does she have what she needs? It's beyond just physical, what you see, right? It's very apparent. We could see that you are a power wheelchair user. But neurodivergent people, you can't necessarily see that. And so I think that that's that awareness of community support that you and I have been-- we've been talking about it for a while, but really seeing that advocacy works is tied very tied to community. RYAN MANRIQUEZ: Yeah, and it takes I think, a lot of intention, too, with that, as well, too. And I think the disability community is really great about being able to have a shared understanding of each other's access needs. Even if we don't share the same disability experience. We're able to check in with each other at the beginning of meetings or the beginnings of lectures. TRACIE ALLEN: Willing to have the conversation, right? RYAN MANRIQUEZ: Right, saying, hey, is everyone's access and functional needs being met right now? And if not, what can we do? TRACIE ALLEN: And that can change, right? It's like every day can change. It could be a different situation for you that morning, tougher day, easier day. So what drew you to Berkeley? And what were you hoping for as a student with a disability? RYAN MANRIQUEZ: What drew me to Berkeley was the historic activism that was so evident throughout our university's history. And obviously, the one that I most identify with is the disability rights movement, I think what was important for me to have an understanding is that even though UC Berkeley has this great history of activism and change-making, it doesn't mean that everything's perfect. TRACIE ALLEN: No. RYAN MANRIQUEZ: And it meant that there would be more work that would need to be done. Now, coming to my first day, I wasn't sure necessarily what that work was going to be like. And where it started for me was living in student housing. Now, when I moved into student housing for graduate student housing down in Emeryville, at a-- called the intersection, I did my due diligence as a disabled student. And I asked for a tour to go check out and see if everything was going to meet my access and functional needs as a disabled student, as a physically disabled student. And upon touring with a disabled lens, I noticed certain gaps, like the absence of an emergency evacuation chair. And that was particularly important at the Intersection because the housing units started on the second floor. So I wouldn't be able to evacuate on my own. And it wasn't until we had a fire alarm in our building that was not planned. For all intents and purposes, that was the real deal and that we would need to evacuate the building. Once I moved into the hallway, I immediately realized that I did not have a way out. So I was-- TRACIE ALLEN: How scary. RYAN MANRIQUEZ: It was probably the most terrifying moment outside of a hospital in my life, I'll say. And I remember just hearing the alarms blare and blare and blare and being sequestered next to the stairwell. And it wasn't just the threat to my physical safety. It was the mental aspect of seeing your peers evacuate without you, that feeling of being left behind. Luckily, it turned out that there was some construction in the building, and it tripped the fire alarm. So it wasn't a real fire. But that was a serious access failure in the most intense situation that you could think of. TRACIE ALLEN: And then how traumatizing every time you walk into that building thinking that, oh, there's a risk. Me just going in here is a risk. RYAN MANRIQUEZ: And less than 24 hours later, an undergraduate student on campus, Tricia Nguyen, who I will plug here as a Regent's and Chancellor's scholar, as well, too, experienced the exact same thing in her student housing, where she was not able to evacuate the building due to an absence of an emergency evacuation chair, where the elevators doors shut, and she couldn't evacuate. So her and her care attendant were just at the top of the stairwell, waiting to find out what would happen. TRACIE ALLEN: Man. RYAN MANRIQUEZ: So I knew that there was an issue on the campus. And because it was happening at UC Berkeley, I said, well, this is happening at UC Berkeley, the birthplace of the disability rights movement. This could be happening on any of our campuses across the system. And that was the point where I took these concerns directly to the Board of Regents. And earlier that summer, I had gotten elected as president of the UC Graduate and Professional Council, which represents over 60,000 masters, doctors, potential lawyers across the University of California system. And I shared my story with the Board, where all of the chancellors were in attendance, our former university president, Michael Drake. And it was-- you start noticing moments that began to really change things. There's a quote from Judy Heumann, that I actually used in my master's capstone, that says, "Change happens very slowly, at a glacier pace almost. And people who want to create that change are pulling all of the levers that they can. And excruciatingly slow, you'll notice that something will tip and that change will start to happen." And I felt like when I shared my story to the board and also shared Trisha's story, that was a moment where things started to change. And immediately following that, I began working with the Office of the President to create system-wide guidance to ensure that our students with disabilities-- but not just students, also staff and faculty with disabilities-- would have support systems in place on the campus to ensure their safety when it came to emergency evacuation. And my belief was that, god forbid, if there was going to be a major earthquake in San Francisco, which we do expect to happen in the next few decades, first responders might be a little preoccupied than to come to student housing to take me down a level. But it would be important that our students were not, again, left behind. So creating guidance for the campuses to implement, whether that be really enforcing emergency evacuation chairs in all of our campus buildings that are multi-storied, having individualized emergency evacuation plans where you can work together with a staff member from the Disability Access Compliance Office here at Berkeley, because you can work together sharing your lived experiences as a student, staff, or faculty member with a disability, and then having someone on staff with so much knowledge about the campus infrastructure of how these things work, you can create a plan together on where you will be and what support systems you will have available to you. But then another thing that was really important for us was to train and create what we call building emergency coordinators. And those coordinators would be responsible for their lecture hall or for their building in student housing and would be the point person during an emergency and would have access to students and would know where their students are in the event of that emergency and would be able to go assist them if it's needed. TRACIE ALLEN: So it sounds when you went to that meeting with the Regent, you felt the shift because you actually felt like they heard you. But now you see that, once you got here in Berkeley, and then you saw these changes-- because I do know that there are changes now with the emergency evacuation-- where you actually had a voice. You said, number two in disability justice is having the voice of the disability community because it's invaluable where you can partner up, which that's what I really love about all of this, is that we can partner up, and our expertise and skills combined together can enrich the system barriers that we have, may it be policies or the buildings. I mean, I know you were talking to me about just the simple thing of going to class. And say that you're late, and the door is closed, and you literally can't get in. And I just thought, how terrible, dehumanizing that you're trying to get to school to learn, and you still can't do that, because the building itself is a barrier for you. And then it also is that mental-- I keep thinking how the mental strain and challenge of, oh, man, that was just tough to even get in the room. And then you get there, and then you have to decompress. OK, I'm in the classroom and getting prepared for learning. How do you focus? It becomes more barriers and more barriers and more barriers coming in. And that's hard. That's really hard. RYAN MANRIQUEZ: It is. And I mean, I would experience that frequently at community college and at UC Davis, where I would have to show up 20 to 15 minutes early for every class just so I could scout out a student potentially walking by, or maybe I meet the faculty member early there, which actually kind of worked to my advantage because I would get to know the faculty member more when I showed up early. But it still was something that I just needed to factor in, that non-disabled students would not have to factor in, because they showed up whenever they had to show up. TRACIE ALLEN: And they to get up at the last minute, don't have to do all the preparation. Yeah, there's a lot of little things. It takes a lot. RYAN MANRIQUEZ: There's a lot of planning when you're a disabled person that you have to do, that you have to think out. I'd like to think that we use that to our advantage quite a bit because I'm able to really plan out my day hour by hour, really efficiently because I've just had to live disabled in my entire life. But that's another thing that we needed to consider. But once I came to Berkeley, finishing this story, I remember going to the Goldman School and just expecting the same thing, that I would go to GSPP 250 and not be able to get in to the door to the classroom. But what I noticed was an automatic door button. And there were kind of a lot of doors around at the Goldman School, so I was just-- I thought that was a door to the outside or accessway to the outside. But it turned out that that accessible door plate was directly to the classroom. And that was the first time that I'd ever experienced true access into the academic setting, where I didn't need any other assistance. I was able to navigate from my transportation directly into the building and directly into my seat in the classroom. TRACIE ALLEN: Wow. RYAN MANRIQUEZ: And that was, again, a new level of independence and access that I experienced here on campus. And I hope that's something that we could all create for our students here. TRACIE ALLEN: That's why it is important that faculty and staff, that we pay attention and also bring them in, draw them in, right? RYAN MANRIQUEZ: Yeah. TRACIE ALLEN: Was there a moment when support from peers, faculty, or staff really changed things for you? RYAN MANRIQUEZ: One I think that I want to start with is our amazing Disability Cultural Center on campus. That was another thing that drew me to Berkeley because I knew that UC Berkeley had the only, the first and only Disability Cultural Center in the entire University of California system. Being in that Center, being with other students and staff and faculty where we all have a place to just be ourselves, I never would hesitate or feel like a burden if I needed to ask for assistance, or I needed to ask for my laptop out to complete an assignment. It was just a space that was so welcoming and that I felt completely like myself in. There was something just different and intrinsic about being in that Community Cultural Center, where we could have so many different conversations around our disability freely, beyond accommodations. TRACIE ALLEN: Right. Yeah, which brings up, when we talk about beyond accommodations here on campus, that I think that we-- I love going to the DCC. I mean, every time I go there, I meet amazing people. Everybody's friendly. Everybody's there to help each other. The sense of belonging is present in how you feel. And DCC here is definitely a shining example of that because it is that holistic approach to education. Something that I'm really reflecting on, and what I see in you is, I mean, you're an alumni. The focus for you still is advocacy work. It is about, what am I going to do beyond Berkeley that I'm going to impact the rest of this world? So I think that that's what's so inspiring about students here is that, even once you graduate, it doesn't just stop there. OK, I got my diploma. No, it's about living a life that is in pursuit of making access of education there for everyone. RYAN MANRIQUEZ: I never could have dreamed that I would be at Berkeley as a young disabled person, where I never took the SAT or the ACT because I was worried about asking for accommodations. And those were things, academic barriers that I had, that told me that I would never make it to one of the best institutions in the world, I think disabled students and people about being contributors, whether that's in academia or in the workplace or beyond. If you're physically disabled, if you're neurodivergent, you think differently than your non-disabled counterparts. And that is not a deficit. That's an asset because from my point of view, also in a public policy space, I will think of public policy problems different and solutions differently than my other non-disabled public policy professionals. And, we're able to come to probably similar solutions. But we all might think about a different community or a different outcome based off of our own lived experiences. And I think that is really one of the great assets of having a diverse student body, a diverse campus community, that we're able to all contribute differently, similarly but differently, to the problems that we face on a campus, in a community, in the world. A second story that I'd like to share about a real difference that a faculty member made in my journey here at UC Berkeley was taking a course in the City and Regional Planning department, and it was with Professor Dr. Victor Pineda, serves as the executive director of the Center for Independent Living in Berkeley. And it was the first time that I took a course, at all levels of higher education, where my faculty member was also a power wheelchair user. And that shared understanding and identity broke down all of the barriers, all of the scares that I would have asking a faculty member a question and just transformed my view as a student, as a learner in the classroom. Now I'm in a class where we have multiple wheelchair users, where we have guest lecturers who are wheelchair users. It was just amazing. It was a feeling that I never experienced before. And I experienced it here at Berkeley because we have such a deep network of disabled scholars of people across the region that we're able to tap into for their expertise and for their knowledge. TRACIE ALLEN: They were given that opportunity. RYAN MANRIQUEZ: Right. I think a lot about accommodations in the classroom. I've always said that I'm very privileged to live with a physical disability. I'll say that again. I'm very privileged to live with a physical disability because I will never have to quote, unquote, "convince" anyone that I'm disabled. But I know of a lot of students who are neurodivergent, who have chronic illness or chronic pain that do. TRACIE ALLEN: Yeah, they have to prove themselves all the time, right? RYAN MANRIQUEZ: And when I think about accommodations, I know that there's some concern among faculty about changing academic standards. Rigor is something that I think we pride ourselves on here at UC and wanting to make sure that we're challenging our students, but about challenging them in a healthy way, I'll say. Those academic standards are not meant to be changed. Accommodations are about providing access to those standards so that our students can rise to the occasion and can meet your expectations in the classroom because we all want to learned something new. That's why we're here. Right. We all want it to contribute something bigger than ourselves. That's why we're here. And I think if our students are granted these opportunities to be in classrooms that traditionally, historically, they have not been in, they will see that opportunity, and they will be 100% in that. TRACIE ALLEN: It sounds like what you're saying is that faculty, just reminding them that accommodations-- there's a purpose, and the purpose is about accessing the learning. And when you have barriers like the physical buildings or the way that instructors do the pedagogy of their classes, those become those barriers. And then we're not really doing what our mission is, right? RYAN MANRIQUEZ: And additionally, as a disabled student, I would never want my faculty member to change their course just for me. I want you to teach me as though I'm one of your however many students. But also, teach me like it's going to be in the real world. TRACIE ALLEN: Right. I want to be able to have faculty-- a call to action, not just to faculty, but to staff. What would you say, in terms of community support, what is something that you think that faculty or staff, how do we have somebody try something new that would open that opportunity for better access for students with disabilities? RYAN MANRIQUEZ: One, it's integral, but also is interconnected in the ways that our entire campus community can play a role in the success of our students. You have so many different departments and individual faculty members who are always trying to do their best in the classroom. I know that. And our students are in the same boat. They're also trying to do their best in the classroom. But some days, our students, some of them, might experience chronic pain. They might have a doctor's appointment that they can't come to the class. And being able to provide access to the materials that they otherwise would have been at if they had not had a disability, I believe is all about what we're trying to do. TRACIE ALLEN: So different options. RYAN MANRIQUEZ: I think it takes a deep level of understanding, but also empathy. TRACIE ALLEN: Empathy. RYAN MANRIQUEZ: For students with disabilities. But one thing that I'll also say, too, is that, as a disabled student, I know that trust-building can go such a long way with faculty members. So even though I didn't have to, I would always make it a point to go introduce myself to the faculty member. And I would tell them, listen, I might need some certain things in my accommodations in order to fully engage and participate in your course. But I wanted to communicate that day one so that we're able to work together as a team because I'm here because I had such deep interest in your class, in the materials that you teach. And this was the course that I wanted to take this semester. And if faculty members can listen to that and understand that, that students are taking my course for a reason-- it's because you got something good to offer-- that they'll want to provide that access to that student because they want to teach as many students as possible. TRACIE ALLEN: So having so having a personal relationship. And I think that that's really what you're talking about is building trust within and among us. It's not just that you're just another number in the classroom. I think that all students, that's advice that I would say to all students, is about having that personal relationship. But it does take effort for people to work and build relationships. RYAN MANRIQUEZ: It does. And now that I think about it, I will also say that that's probably easier said than done. I think about another example, going back to the built environment and our infrastructure on campus, where many of our classrooms have disabled seating in the back. But you might not necessarily have access to the front of the classroom. It might be a very tall lecture hall where there's steps down and your wheelchair cannot. So you can't even reach your faculty member. TRACIE ALLEN: A lot of the rooms are in a way that you cannot get to where they are at the front. So maybe the one thing that comes to my mind is a faculty member, if they notice that there are students with disabilities, especially people who have a wheelchair, the one thing that they could change easily today in the classroom is to just recognize and then make that time and space and opportunity for them to actually go and meet you, to give that student that opportunity, because I imagine that you probably are thinking, well, I can't get to them. That's why it is important that faculty and staff, that we pay attention and also bring them in, draw them in, right? RYAN MANRIQUEZ: Yeah. And I know, in the graduate space, we talk about mentorship a lot between faculty members and either their GSIs or GSRs, or maybe you're on a capstone course. But I think mentorship is critical across all of our different levels of the university. If a faculty member can play a mentorship role in a disabled student's experience here at Cal, I think it will directly benefit them and their experience, where they might not see themselves in a research space. But that faculty member changed that and said, no, you can be in the lab, actually. So I think just more conversations, more communication, that understanding empathy between all of the members of our campus community. TRACIE ALLEN: Ryan, I just want to thank you so much for taking the time to well, first, just to have courage to talk about your lived experience here. I cannot wait to see what you're going to be doing in the future. Is there anything that you would like to share before we end here, just any thoughts? RYAN MANRIQUEZ: I really wanted to say that higher education has changed my life completely. I never would have thought that I would be in boardrooms or in community spaces like the ones that I get privileged to be a part of today. And I hope more disabled students from across the country flock to whatever university that they want to go to because education can change lives. I am a direct result of that, and I want to see more students do that. Back to that mentorship piece, if you have a role model-- I say that with R-O-L-L, with my wheelchair-- TRACIE ALLEN: [LAUGHS] RYAN MANRIQUEZ: --then you'll be able to see that it is possible in your future. So mentorship across levels, I think, is going to be critically important for the success of our students in the future. TRACIE ALLEN: Thank you so much, Ryan. It's been amazing just to get to know you through the past couple of months. RYAN MANRIQUEZ: Thank you. And thank you for uplifting and sharing our stories across the university community. It starts by listening, and I know this podcast is going a long way to doing that. So thank you. TRACIE ALLEN: Thanks. [MUSIC PLAYING] Thank you, Ryan, for leading with lived experience and to everyone listening for the everyday decisions that build a culture of access. Show notes include UC Berkeley's emergency evacuation plan and a short video with Ryan, where he reflects on why equitable design and clear evacuation planning matter for students and staff with disabilities on campus. Finding Space was produced by me, Tracie Allen, and Research, Teaching and Learning, or RTL, with production support from Stephanie Mackley, Betsy Greer, Laura Hart, Robert Hold, and Melanie Green, and RTL Communications and Media. Special thanks 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 have ideas for future episodes, email me. I'm at findingspace@berkeley.edu. We'll be back with a new episode next month.

Episode 6: Roll Model — with UC Berkeley alum Ryan Manriquez

In this episode, alum, Ryan Manriquez, shares how a terrifying emergency-evacuation failure in graduate housing became a catalyst for change—prompting system-wide guidance, individualized evacuation planning, and a renewed focus on not leaving anyone behind. Ryan also highlights the role of the Disability Cultural Center, mentorship, and representation in creating real access. We discuss why accommodations don’t lower academic standards—they enable students to meet them—and how small shifts by faculty and staff signal belonging every day.

Resources:

Guidance on Instructor Preparedness for Classroom Disruptions and Emergencies - — Practical steps for faculty before, during, and after an incident; includes evacuation, communication, and continuity tips.
Video: Accessibility Renovations at UC Berkeley — with Ryan Manriquez

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Finding Space is brought to you by Research Teaching, and Learning (RTL) in UC Berkeley's Division of Undergraduate Education.

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Episode 5. Lead Culture from Where You Are: Cultivating Collective Care

In this episode, Marisella Rodriguez (Associate Director of Equity & Inclusion, Center for Teaching and Learning), Carmen Varela (Executive Director, Disabled Students’ Program), and UC Berkeley Chancellor Rich Lyons (Office of the Chancellor) discuss how leadership, collective care, and disability justice intersect across roles and responsibilities on campus.

Together, they explore how culture is shaped not just by policy, but by everyday decisions, values, and human connection—and why meaningful change starts with all of us.

Join the conversation: What role can you play in leading culture and cultivating collective care on campus?

Correction: During the conversation, Carmen mentions that the Section 504 protests took place in the 1960s. The protests actually occurred in the 1970s.

Share your feedback with us at findingspace@berkeley.edu

Finding Space is brought to you by Research Teaching, and Learning (RTL) in UC Berkeley's Division of Undergraduate Education.

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CARMEN VARELA: Every university that I've been at suffers from ableism, whether it's in the classroom, whether it's in our policies, our practices, the infrastructure. People don't think of students with disabilities as the best and the brightest when they really are. Even the richness of their experience as people with disabilities enriches any space that they enter. So how do we shift that culture at Berkeley into one that values everybody?

TRACIE ALLEN: 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. Hi, everyone. I'm Tracie Allen, I'm the Access and Innovation Strategist at Research, Teaching, and Learning. I'm so glad you're here. Finding Space is a project close to my heart, created to amplify disability justice and reimagine what access, equity, and belonging can look like in higher ed. So today's conversation is all about how leadership, collective care, and disability justice show up in everyday moments across campus. So you're going to hear from three UC Berkeley leaders who reflect on how each of us have a role to play in shaping a more inclusive culture, no matter where we sit in the institution. So let's jump in.

MARISELLA RODRIGUEZ: I'm Marisella Rodriguez. My pronouns are she/her. I'm the Inclusive Teaching Manager at the Center for Teaching and Learning. And I'm feeling really honored to be in this conversation with two leaders that I not only recognize, but look up to, respect, value. So this is a really big moment for me. I'm feeling excited and curious for today.

TRACIE ALLEN: Thank you.

CARMEN VARELA: Hi, everyone. I'm Carmen Varela, and I'm the Executive Director of the Disabled Students' Program at UC Berkeley. I'm also excited to be here in conversation with Rich and Marisella. I'll say that there is a lot on my mind and on my heart with everything happening in communities. So this is, I think, a really important and timely conversation that we'll be having today.

RICH LYONS: Thanks. Rich Lyons, he/him. I was an undergrad here a number of years ago, got to come back on the faculty in the early 1990s, and I've been serving as the Chancellor just since last summer, since July.

MARISELLA RODRIGUEZ: And Carmen, I'm wondering if you can speak a bit about Berkeley's history in supporting the disability community and being members of the disability community.

CARMEN VARELA: Thanks, Mari. So this is a really special place. I've been at Berkeley for a year and a half, have followed Berkeley for the last 30 years of my career, all of the groundbreaking work of this place. And it would be remiss of us to not ground that in history and the legacy of activism, the legacy of people with disabilities putting their bodies on the line to forward equal access. I think about Ed Roberts, a student with a disability who was at Berkeley, who had every right, as all of our students do with disabilities, to be here, to learn, to have access to knowledge. And that fight for starting a disabled students program here. And I think about the community that came to help in that fight for equal access. And so I think about in the '60s, when they were doing the 504 sit-ins up in San Francisco, there was people that were caring for people with disabilities who were at the Capitol doing the sit-ins. We had the Black Panther Party come in. We had, Brad Lomax, is his name, who was also a person with a disability. He was a Black man who was a wheelchair user with MS. And he was attending or had attended an HBCU and he became an activist and was an activist for a very long time. And I think about how they came and surrounded the disability community at a time when it was most needed. And so when I think, fast forward to where we're at now and how we are a part of that legacy and the work that we do here at Berkeley, it's extraordinarily important.

RICH LYONS: Oh, yeah. I got hear in the late 1970s. One of the first courses that I took was a physics course in Pimentel Hall, which most students, when they enter, there's a long stairway. For every lecture, there were a number of disabled students that were right there in front of the faculty member, and I-- I never really seen that. It was very noticeable to an 18-year-old who was watching this institution serving such a wide angle of people. And so that was kind of a note to self time period in my life in Berkeley. You mentioned Ed Roberts and so many others at that time. That's a wonderfully rich history, and it's a point of great pride. And it continues.

CARMEN VARELA: And if I may just kind of dovetail on what Rick was saying. At that time, it was incredibly critical for people with disabilities to be at the forefront of a movement around access and really kind of asserting their right to be part of-- to have a part in the decisions that affect them and to be able to create their own destiny and live out their own destiny. For so many years, people with disabilities did not have that opportunity here. There was an institutionalization of people with disabilities, and this was a very dark history of eugenics and institutionalization of people with disabilities in this country. And so the movement that started here was really followed a movement of parents that had children with disabilities in the '50s. And that's kind of where it started. It grew in the '60s with civil rights. It grew with people with disabilities, and it was the impetus, 504 sit-ins were the impetus to the ADA. And so people with disabilities have always fought for the right to be included, to be a part of those decisions that impact them. And then they continue to do it today. As our students, we hae a wide student body, we're now serving 6,000 students at DSP and have a pretty remarkable array of services to provide that access.

MARISELLA RODRIGUEZ: I'm always checking myself in conversations like these to not overintellectualize these big terms of collective care. It's making me think of the human experience around collective care. To care for another person's body is one way that comes to mind, to deepen that understanding of caring for another as a young individual for the first time comes to mind. And what are other ways, maybe, that our campus community is connecting with this idea of collective care right now? Rich, I'm largely thinking of these principles of collective care that might underpin our larger purpose and function in our local and global community with UC Berkeley.

RICH LYONS: Yeah, thanks. It's for us to shape together as we think about what the true instantiation of some of the things we believe in is going to look like going forward, how does it get even stronger. One of the elements for me, when we think about our principles of community or the values that we share even more broadly than that, one of those principles of community is equitable access. So that's been codified for a long time, no surprise there. And as we think about what shape that takes going forward, and how do we ensure that we are delivering on that among the other principles. Can we know exactly what they are and can we imagine equitable access, for example, being a pillar in our next capital campaign or in our next strategic plan? I think, not just at Berkeley, but I think sometimes people think, well, values are over there, and then we do strategic plan. And it's sort of like, what if we put the values right at the center of what we're going to do?

CARMEN VARELA: And I'm always coming back to gosh, what is our history with principles of community, with care. When I think about examples of collective care, I think about some of the programs that have developed here at UCB that serve the most system impacted students. I know that when DSP meets with students to engage them in an interactive process to determine accommodations, they are not just looking at or solely looking at what is the disability related need. They are looking at them holistically. What is happening? And they call it using your sociological imagination where you're thinking of all of the different. It's almost another word for intersectionality. Is this a foster youth? Is this a parenting student or a parent with a disability who is here at Berkeley? Is just a first gen student? Is this an international student? Who are our students? And then how do we then ensure that they're able to receive or be directed to the services that they need? For example, we've got Underground Scholars, we have NAV Cal navigating Cal. We have UHS. We have students who might need some assistance with prescriptions, with some medical care. We have our counseling and psychological services. We have a number of programs that serve our students. And I feel that is a part of that collective care, that we help our students navigate on this campus. And then there is the collective care that happens in the classroom. And what does that look like? What is faculty's responsibility and willingness to be able to also demonstrate care for students with disabilities within the classroom space and for all students, really. We know that if we design pedagogy that is inclusive, that is going to benefit all students. So how do we-- I always think about how do we begin to move people into action. When I think about inclusive excellence, that is my big dream here, about how do we move people into action so that we really create spaces that are inclusive for students all over campus. How do we begin to move people to understand the importance of access and collective care and disability justice?

MARISELLA RODRIGUEZ: That's really the term that's been ringing for me this last year and a half, personally, professionally, I've really had an education on disability justice from folks like you, Carmen, our colleague at the Center for Teaching and Learning, Tara Mason, who's our Universal Design for Learning Consultant, Berkeley's own fabulous professor, Karen Nakamura, who I've seen Karen speak on the tension between disability justice and something like universal design for learning. And for someone like myself who has this professional training and inclusive teaching, how this approach for teaching for all students, teaching and reaching for all students. I used to give workshops on that at a previous institution all the time. And now our thinking has evolved into what are the specific needs of the students who need them most? Where are the largest equity gaps. Start there and work towards the rest then. But naming these specific student needs and communities rather than a teach for all approach, putting our students first who are really possibly struggling in the classroom. And for our instructors, hopefully asking yourself, yeah, why was I teaching that way? Did I have to? Maybe not. Suddenly, you're opening yourself to this whole new world of possibilities and an entirely different future for your students. And it starts in your classroom.

CARMEN VARELA: Yeah, and I see universal design as if you design courses, spaces, what have you for those in the margins, then you will capture everybody in between. It's not going to fix everything, but it will make things better. It will make things more accessible.

RICH LYONS: One of the things that connects both of what you just said, take neurodivergence as a category. I want to use the phrase, psychological permission. I think part of-- the incidence of that and the need for a common, not just accommodation. Think how many parents are in that circle now that wouldn't have thought about themselves as being connected to disabled community, and how that's changing the psychology of this. And so I think it's a widening circle, and people are seeing it as a widening need. But we sometimes think of it as what's the number of students? What's the number of families, that they represent? And I think that wider frame is part of how society changes.

CARMEN VARELA: Yes and I'll say, Richard, in the work that we do, I always think about our impact, not just individually, but when we have students with disabilities graduate. What that means, it affects generations of other students. We know that education, educational attainment is connected to being able to move to social and economic upward mobility. And we know that disability and poverty are inextricable. So typically where you see disability, you see poverty, where you see poverty, you see disability. And they go hand in hand. So through education and through attaining degrees, highly valuable degrees, like the ones that are attained here at Berkeley, we put students in a position where they're able to move into meaningful employment and competitive employment and then realize those dreams. And we change the trajectory of generations of lives. Love that. And I think that is the importance of the work that we do.

RICH LYONS: Love that, I just want to continue on this because part of it is somebody mentioned this idea when we think about graduating, so let's take social mobility and a student that is coming from less advantaged. We bring them in and we think about readiness on the front end. And OK. And then they graduate. And it's like-- we've given them what we need. But you could also say, what about the five years after graduation? This student came from profound disadvantage. And here's our new program for t plus 5. It's like, that's interesting. Now I don't know whether that's something we will choose to do in our next strategic plan, but those are the kinds of ideas that people come up with. It's like that could be very, very interesting. So I think our model is enlarging in some very exciting ways.

CARMEN VARELA: I love the idea of doing a longitudinal study of the impact of their degrees and looking at what has happened five years later, 10 years later, for students with disabilities or students from other communities when they do graduate from a place like Berkeley, I think we will find some pretty incredible things that people are contributing to society and to the greater good. So I see the work that DSP does to get students graduated as part of that common and greater good value that we have here at Berkeley, because it's not just about the moment. I mean, we are all in the moment, living in the moment, but it's thinking beyond the moment. It's thinking about the future. How do we begin to eradicate poverty through education? And for people with disabilities who have historically been impoverished, it's just that much more important for them.

MARISELLA RODRIGUEZ: What do you both see are the levers that we have at UC Berkeley that move that greater good forward or push it back?

CARMEN VARELA: So I'll say in terms of helping the effort, I think shared governance is a really important element that sticks out for me. When I think about students like Ryan Manriquez and some of our other students with disabilities, and I think about the Disabled Students Advocacy Program on campus, ASUC, Disables Students Commission, we have the UC graduate and professional council. We've got the UC Student Association of California. I believe that Berkeley has really lived up to its commitment to shared governance. And those are some pretty powerful student groups on this campus who somewhat guide the work that we do, the policies that are developed on campus for them to be able to do their work and have access. And it's so important for people's voices to be heard. And I think, especially in the disability community, because of all that legacy that we talked about in the activism. I think some places that we could do better is how do we better resource the work. Last year, we received some one time funding from UCOP to be able to hire more staff to reduce wait times. So one time money, we're able to hire for two year contracts. We went from six to eight week wait times, from the time they put in an application to the time of service, which is an intake, to 24 to 72 hours. And so now we have met the goals from that system-wide report that came out. That was the dream, was to be able to reduce those wait times and then reduce bottlenecks. It allows us to be able to find gaps in knowledge and practice for our staff. It gives our staff more time to do other work across campus, to do liaisonships, to do trainings, to do outreach. It helps us better retain our staff to be able to do this work. And so how do we find the funds to be able to keep this work going? Because in two years, those funds are gone and then we're left back to six to eight weeks. And what that means for students is that if the longer they wait to receive their accommodations, the more at risk they are at failing classes, falling behind. And then we know what those repercussions are, low GPA, it affects their standing, and then it potentially affects their ability to be able to graduate from Berkeley.

MARISELLA RODRIGUEZ: What a ripple effect.

RICH LYONS: As we think about social mobility or some of these other narratives, part of what I'm starting to enjoy engaging with the word pluralism. As we think about difference, coexisting difference, that's a kind of superficial way to think about pluralism. But I mention it simply because if we-- I'll give you a concrete example, I was talking to one of our colleagues. We were talking about providing more life and career opportunities at scale, given how big Berkeley is, in an absolutely world class platform for internships. And we have a lot of internships. We have a lot going on, but it's what would go into the next level in terms of internship provision look like. And because my field is economics. So if you come from a family with a lot of social capital, most people get their internships from their family and their network. If you come from a family without a lot of social capital, that's not how you're getting your internship. OK, so this person said to me, that's a really interesting, this colleague of ours, interesting idea, this platform. And it's a social justice issue. So that kind of provision of life opportunities in ways that are de facto sort of leaning into disadvantage is a set of opportunities where it's like, what 10 of those can we come up with over the next couple of years and put it in our not just our strategic plan, but also our capital camp plan and things like that. Those are some of the elements that I feel like this remarkable societal asset can actually mobilize in some remarkable ways that will serve the disabled community, but also, even more widely, the many communities in a kind of pluralistic way that we need to make sure that we continue to serve even better.

CARMEN VARELA: And I'll say, Rich, I really appreciate that conversation you were having and you sharing that with us, because for people with disabilities, discrimination in employment is very real. So they don't typically have opportunities for internships. Sometimes accommodations are needed. What is that going to look like in an internship space and a practicum space and a clinical space? And so it is so important for students with disabilities to have that skill, to be able to go into an internship, do the work, beef up their resumes, and show that they were able to participate just like everybody else, and were successful in an internship or practicum because it gives them the skills that they come in here seeking to find. And they might not have those opportunities, because they don't have access, or they don't have that social capital or even the cultural capital to navigate some of those spaces. And so I am excited to see what comes of that.

RICH LYONS: Well, thank you for that because it does connect, just as you used the phrasing. We talk about equitable access. We often think of that as who gets to matriculate at Berkeley. It's like it's actually a lot bigger than that. Who gets the full opportunities that Berkeley can make available?

CARMEN VARELA: This is really a call to action, for us to think from anywhere you are on campus. What role can you play in supporting our disability community, whether that's our students, our staff colleagues, our instructors that we work with? And I'd love to hear from both of you where you think those areas we can offer for enhancement? What are some of the concrete barriers in front of us? And how can each of us across our institution, our campus, play a role in removing those barriers?

RICH LYONS: There's this phrase out there, lead from where you are. And the idea is, no matter where you are in your career, it's sort of like you have leadership opportunities. So let me be concrete around a related phrase, lead culture from where you are. Each of us can be a culture leader, like peer to peer, small group, three person team in a room. What does culture leadership look like? What can I do to help other people around me know that they matter, know that their work matters? So if somebody says, yeah, well, up on high, they're going to start a mentoring program in people and culture. It's like, yeah, maybe. And we'll see. But it's sort of like, what can each of us do? So leading culture from where you are. Each of us is a culture leader, the peer to peer strengthening of culture is where a lot of the action is. And so this would be as relevant for disability rights as it would be for wellness and belonging and mattering.

MARISELLA RODRIGUEZ: My thought around that bridge is in terms of culture, is how do we begin to dismantle ableism within higher education and the culture here at Berkeley? This is my fifth university that I'm at. And every university that I've been at suffers from ableism, whether it's in the classroom, whether it's in our policies, our practices, the infrastructure of the university, the systems that students have to navigate. And so just a quick definition of ableism, which is the value that an institution or person places on able-bodied people. And so when we are in an institution that is highly rigorous, highly competitive, typically people don't think of students with disabilities as the best and the brightest when they really are, so much to contribute. Even the richness of their experience as people with disabilities enriches any space that they enter. So I think about how do we shift that culture at Berkeley into one that values everybody, including students with disabilities, staff members with disabilities? At some point in our life, we will all be a person with a disability if we're lucky enough to live that long. And so I think about how do we find space to do that work? How do we begin to think about restructuring pedagogy? How do we begin to create more access for students in the physical space, as well as the online space, the classroom space, the testing space? How do we imagine or see everybody and every student as excellent because our students are the best and the brightest, all of them, whether they have a disability or not. That is why they are here. And so, I believe being able to dismantle that ableism and help people see that, I think is critical, and we are in a time and place where we can begin to do that better.

MARISELLA RODRIGUEZ: I'm wondering if you all can speak to maybe a specific example where you've seen whether your work or the work of a colleague really move that culture forward.

RICH LYONS: If we thought about seeing tangibly what we did and what we made available, the stories of accommodations aren't just accommodations. What's the link between something we did and a transformed life? Do we tell that story often enough? I mean, I think that's part of what makes people feel like, yeah, this is really working. And it really does matter. And it's not just about mattering, right. It's also about understanding an even wider cross-section of people understanding we should put more resources into this because it's really moving lives. And so that's-- when I talk about lead culture from where you are, it's what stories are you going to choose to tell? And when we get positive feedback from something that we're doing collectively in this area, are we letting people know. Because I think that helps to create more momentum.

CARMEN VARELA: And I think when we encounter faculty who are going beyond what perhaps an accommodation letter says and are caring for students, checking in with students, I think for me that signals that there is somewhat of a culture shift and change. I also think about neurodiversity a lot. We just had our very first-- Berkeley's very first neurodiversity symposium, which was put on by our Spectrum Connect. And it was a really great event. We had people who were neurodiverse as speakers, professionals. We created a space that was inclusive, that was sensory friendly, that really spoke to the community, and it was broadcast nationally. And so how do we begin to continue doing things that even go beyond compliance? Compliance and accommodations are the floor. But here at Berkeley, we do more than just the basics, more than the floor. And so our Disability Cultural community center. I think about Spectrum Connect. I think about-- we have a peer to peer program for graduate students. We have graduate students, PhD students working with other graduate students with disabilities to help them navigate challenges with executive functioning, with learning, with studying. There's so many there's so many great things happening on this campus. And so I think about all of those things and how we can always do more. And we're talking about what is that more. And so the more is all of the beyond compliance work, the connections, the collective care, the dismantling ableism, the expanding access for students with disabilities and other students who come from historically resilient communities. There's just so much. There's so many opportunities. It's exciting for me too, Rich, just to think about that.

RICH LYONS: No, it truly is. And thanks for that. Part of what just popped into my head, as you were saying, that Carmen, is this phrase, you can't be what you can't see. I think almost everybody reacts positively to that phrase. And then if you stopped yourself and said, what category of seeing is de facto coming into your brain? Is it like this job category is available to you? What we're affecting here is a cognitive transition from they do that to I do that. And if we thought about what is the disability rights slice from they do that to I do that story category right? What does that look like? Or you can't be what you can't see. Because I think if we were interviewing our students, we would get a category of stories. It's sort of like I just-- I didn't know this was going to be available to me. And I'm so thankful. That's the real deal. That's like, yeah, they didn't just learn physics. I hope they did learn their physics. But, that's a transformation. And I think those are-- some of those are stories that we could tell more fully.

CARMEN VARELA: And I think the learning transcends the classroom. So in our interactions with students, in all that we do and all that we see on this campus, is there's so much that's beyond the classroom. The classroom, absolutely, 100% important. That's why students are here, is to have that knowledge get their degrees. But there's so much learning that happens outside of the campus. And I think that is something that we can leverage as part of the brilliance of Berkeley.

MARISELLA RODRIGUEZ: I wanted to take a moment and just really reflect and pause here on what we've learned from our conversation and our time together. Where do you both feel like you are right now as we come to a close?

CARMEN VARELA: I feel like I have learned a little something from rich about what's cooking, about the internships, about your vision, Rich, your experience. I love that you talked about alumni because I often think about how can we bring in more alumni with disabilities to either mentor students with disabilities, motivate, inspire so they could be what they see in our alumni. I am just in awe of where I'm at, and almost sometimes can't believe that I'm here doing this very important and deeply meaningful work.

RICH LYONS: So thank you. And part of what a role like mine misses is what's happening on the ground. And that's been helpful for me to hear, Carmen, and not just hear the words, but also look at your face and see the energy that you bring to it and the commitment and the passion. Those are some of the other elements as I try and round out my listening of this remarkable campus, is hearing how much is going on. And I still obviously am just scratching the surface, but this has been helpful to me.

MARISELLA RODRIGUEZ: Do either of you have a wish or a hope that you'd like to leave listeners with?

CARMEN VARELA: So I hope that one day there will be no need for a disabled students program. And the students with disabilities don't have to fight for access and equal rights.

RICH LYONS: Yeah, I hope that 10 years out, the whole world understands just how distinctive and remarkable this institution is.

MARISELLA RODRIGUEZ: Two really bold wishes and hopes. That's what this podcast does and these conversations do, I think when you connect with folks. I want to offer an immense thank you to both of you, your time, your dedication, your attention to the work that's so important to all of us. Thank you.

RICH LYONS: Thanks, Mari.

CARMEN VARELA: Thanks, Marisella. Thanks, Rich.

RICH LYONS: Thanks.

TRACIE ALLEN: I want to thank you for listening to Finding Space. I hope this conversation sparks something for you, whether it's a new perspective or a reminder of the role we all play in shaping a more inclusive campus. And if you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a colleague or student and be sure to subscribe so you don't miss what's coming next. Finding Space was produced by me, Tracie Allen and Research, Teaching and Learning, or RTL, with production support from Stephanie Mackley, Betsy Greer, Laura Hart, Robert Hold and Melanie Green, and RTL communications and media. Special thanks 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 Sessions. If you have ideas for future episodes, email me. I'm at findingspace@berkeley.edu. We'll be back with a new episode next month.

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Episode 4. My Dream for Berkeley: Student Success Without Lowering Standards

What if every student had a real chance to succeed—without lowering academic standards?

In this episode of Finding Space, Professor Dan Garcia from UC Berkeley’s Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences department explores his dream for Berkeley: a university where all students can bring their authentic selves and thrive.

After 20 years in the classroom, Dan began rethinking traditional grading practices—deeply inspired by the book Grading for Growth. His shift toward more equitable, student-centered approaches led to the adoption of strategies like absolute grading, flexible deadlines, and exam retakes. These changes are designed to support all students, particularly disabled and neurodivergent learners, while still emphasizing academic mastery.

This conversation challenges us to imagine a more inclusive university—one where learning is continuous, failure is not final, and success is accessible.

Tune in to learn:

Why grading on a curve can harm equity
How “A’s for All (as time and interest allow)” reframes student success
Practical, flexible grading policies that support diverse learners
Why universal design principles benefit all students—not just some

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Read the transcripts

DAN GARCIA: So we've been trying this in our intro non-majors course CS-10, and almost universal student approval of these policies. They just love it. The comments are, why doesn't every course do this? [MUSIC PLAYING]
TRACIE ALLEN: 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. Hi, everyone. Tracie Allen here, and welcome to Finding Space. This episode focuses on innovative ideas that make education more accessible and inclusive. We're joined by Professor Dan Garcia from the Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences department. A dedicated educator who, after two decades in the classroom, transformed his grading practices. Let's listen to Dan and explore practical strategies instructors can use to foster an environment where every student can thrive and achieve mastery, truly finding their space to learn and grow.

DAN GARCIA: My dream for Berkeley is that we, as educators, create a space where all students, those who came from backgrounds that are different from other students, can succeed. I wish for all Berkeley students to bring their authentic selves to be able to come bring that experience, bring who you are, that brings the beauty and the diversity to Berkeley. I wish that faculty would recognize that students come in from different paths, and some students don't come in with the same preparation as others. And so that's part of my passion. What can we all do as faculty to change our policies or alter our policies to allow more grace for our students who might need more time on project deadlines, might need an exam retake, might have life get in the way, and can they all, without lowering any standards, so I want to keep the standards what we have, and can we create a structure where all students can bring their authentic selves and bring their skills and their uniqueness, and can we create a structure that allows all those students to succeed and get the grade they'd like to get, if they're willing to work for it? I think that's what that would be wonderful. So really, it's about, can we create a structure where all students can succeed? I had been teaching at Berkeley for 20 years, and I realized I was giving a lot of C, D, and F grades. As much as I was trying to do to support equity and support students who didn't have experience, by not having a curve, by having a clobber policy where you could do well in the final and overwrite your midterm score. I was doing all of that, and that was very easy to do in my spreadsheet. I was recognizing that students were still getting C's, D's and F's. And so I said, I think I was doing it wrong. I recognized that, what if students couldn't learn at the pace that we're teaching? What could we do to have some more empathy? So I discovered a couple of things. And I recommend faculty and others read "Grading for Growth," "Grading for Equity." Look into different policies that you can-- small tweaks can make changes to your class and can really affect student. Also, student stress can affect students. To give students more grace with time of deadlines and to allow them to have multiple chances to continue to submit that work for success. I've got some teaching awards on the grad level. I got some teaching awards when I was a faculty early. And I thought I had been doing it well. Yet I realized, in retrospect, that I was giving-- for example, here's the things I thought I was doing well, and here's the things that I think are good things to do. I didn't have a curve. I've never had a curve. I think a curve is evil. A curve puts students against each other. I think a curve really says that an A means you're at the top 10% of the cohort, rather than an A saying, you've achieved some level of mastery of the material, some proficiency of the material. And so it's really making them and encouraging them to think about throwing the curve away, if they have one, have an absolute graded model where you have some number of points or things you need to master. There's an idea of specifications grading where you don't talk about points anymore. You talk about concepts, and ideas, and topics, and that some number have to be mastered to get an A, and some number for B, and so that's one way to do it. We're still doing points because we want to compare it to the years before when we did some more of these grading changes. So we still have points, but the conversation with students is that, it's not a curve, it's an absolute graded model. That's 500 points to earn the top 10% of the 500. So the top 40 points or something is the A, the next 40 is the B. So we'll work with you. So that's what's on the board. You see what the goal is, it's out there. And then I'm going to be your coach. Rather than you're now competing, I want you to have collaboration. I want you to work together and teach each other. And you can evolve with the goal of trying to get all your students to succeed. So really, it's about, can you create a structure, can you create policies to support your students so that every student can succeed? Rather than saying, you know what, every year there's going to be 10% A's and 20% C's, D's, and F's, and that's just life, and that's the law of large numbers. That doesn't make any sense. It makes more sense to support all students to succeed where you're not lowering the bar for what an A means, or a B means, or a C means, but you're allowing them to have more opportunities to achieve those grades. So really, you should create a structure where a student can achieve any grade they want. If the student's willing to work for an A, it's out there. You created that structure. If you're willing to work for only a B, that's fine too, and no shame. But you've created a structure to allow for that as well. So it's really changing the structure of higher education so that we allow the student to be able to work for whatever grade they want without lowering any standards. And it might end up that over time there are more A's and B's, and that's just wonderful. The analogy we use is, if you're teaching a class of pilots, it makes no sense to curve that class of pilots who are learning how to land airplanes, takeoff and land airplanes. Does that make sense if no pilot that year can land an airplane that you give the A's to the ones who can't land it the best? That doesn't make any sense. None of them should pass that year. Or if all the pilots pass all the tests, why couldn't they all get A's? And so it's, why couldn't we create a structure that everyone gets A's, but you're not lowering what an A bar is, you're supporting all students, including those who come from high schools that didn't prepare them as well as other high schools to get to that place. And maybe there's a lot more work. They'll be working harder to get to that A, but they're still going to get there. And right now, I think the structure we have is, those students don't get to an A. We say, well, they started farther back and they never get to an A, but that's life. That's not life. We could change the structure to allow all students to succeed, if they learn differently, if they're neurodivergent, if they come from different backgrounds, if that particular concept is hard for their brain to really grok, you're allowing a space to have all students succeed. One of the things I'm working on now, which we call it, "A's for All as Time and Interest Allow." So it's all part of the same ball, which is to try to convince and try to encourage my higher education colleagues to think about. And this is not just at Berkeley. I'm actually trying to go to conferences and share this broader than Berkeley. Can we think about grading practices? The key of "A's for All" is that you're not lowering the bar. The bar is just the same as it always was. An A is the same. You have to earn 460 points out of 500 to get an A. And so it's kind of trying to-- mainly from "Grading for Growth," but from other professional development I've attended and things that I've seen, so no curve. First thing is no curve. Try to have an absolute graded system. And also recognize it really matters at the end. Do they know it at the end? Can they do what they're supposed to be able to do and do they know the material by the end? And so we've also instituted something that's very easy to do, for other colleagues who are listening. It's called a clobber policy. And a clobber policy says that any cumulative later exam can overwrite, can clobber, the score of a poor-performing earlier exam. So if you ace the final, that means you ace the midterm, and you ace the midterm and you ace the quiz. If this really does capture all the material in the earlier pieces, it kind of brings it all together, usually it's harder. Usually the final exam is harder than everything else. So if they've done better percentage-wise, then you can map it back percentage-wise. So your original midterm score is whatever the score was, it's the max of whatever the original score is and the scaled down version of the final. And so the quiz, which is before the midterm, is the original quiz or the scale down the max of that, and the scaled down version of the midterm and maybe the scaled down version of the final. So basically it says, if ever you show me later, then I'm going to go back and fix the earlier grade. So you never kind of bomb a midterm, and then there's no way to get an A. There's always a way to get an A by doing better later and proving it to me. So those are easy to do. Those require nothing other than making sure your exam is cumulative. And you have a little one line equation that says, your grade is now the max of the two. Your midterm is the max of that, the original and the final. So it basically says, you do as well as you can that semester. So as time and interest allow. So no curve, absolute grading, a clobber policy. A third policy that I'd recommend folks think about under the "A's for All" umbrella is flexible deadlines, to allow grace for our students. Our students have things that happen to their life. They're taking a lot of other classes. And flexible extensions says that you can essentially ask for an extension on a project deadline. So the project's due on Friday, and before-- by the way, here's my policy before I recognize that this was a-- I would say, well, if it's submitted on Saturday, it's 10% off. On Sunday, it's 20%. I mean, really, it was very harsh, basically saying you got to get it in on time. So the flexible extension says that if you ask for an extension within a small window of time, maybe it's three days, maybe it's a week, maybe it's four, maybe it's one, then it's a pre-approved extension. It's like, yeah, something happened, it's so small that you need any time, you're fine, you'll stay on pace. There's that. If you need an extension beyond that, what it does is it triggers a meeting with the staff member, and the staff member has a high emotional quotient. So they have a high EQ, and they're able to really get a sense of how the students. Usually it's face-to-face if you can make it happen. And then, listen, hey, maybe you've been sick. Well, let me point you to some resources for sick. Maybe you have some emotional concerns. So this is not a therapist, but this is somebody who can direct you to resources on campus to help you, and also can make a plan. OK, you're asking for a week. The three days is the automatic extension. You want a week, which is about double that. Let's make a plan. We'll give you the week. What's the reason? We'll talk about the reason. OK, let's make a plan so that you can either delay it and maybe work the week, but then if you don't finish it, you continue to work on the next one because maybe they don't build on each other, maybe they do. That means let's move the other one out a little bit to make that work. So looking at the schedule, looking at each student's needs and working with them. So this flexible extensions is amazing. The students have almost universal support of it and are appreciative of us giving them the grace to allow life to get in the way, and to allow them to be able to get sick, or have a parent they have to fly back to LA for because the parent's in the hospital. I just had a recent student who had that situation, so they had to fly back. And they weren't even around for a week. They were going to LA back and forth into the hospital. So it allows the student that flexibility without that. Now here's the interesting thing. You have to say, if you don't ask for the extension before the deadline, we're not going to help you. It's a 0. So it really does encourage people to not ask for forgiveness, but ask for permission. If you ask for permission, we'd be very happy to talk with you about that. So it really does make sure, hey, if I'm going to be missing, let me just fill in the extension form. Boom, extension form's in and they'll get the response with an automatic yes, if it's within the window. And they'll have a conversation it'll trigger, oh, let's find a calendar time for you to meet with the TA after that. So the students appreciate it. We appreciate it. We also encourage folks to allow for a little bit of time at the end of the semester. So if things bubbled up and they were behind, there's a little bit of time, maybe a month or a week, where you can be finishing things that you can be finishing the project. So don't have them work on assignments all up until week 15. Allow some time for the skew of that. So if things kind of slid a little bit, there's a little bit of grace in the schedule to be able to support that. So flexible extensions, which is a little bit more work because you got TAs and you got to set the system up. But if you do it well and you write some software to support that, and thankfully some of our colleagues have done that, that can be very, very useful. So flexible extensions. Something that we're doing and experimenting with is exam retakes. So we're really passionate about being able to have students get feedback on their work. And in computer science, you have projects and you have exams, mostly that's what you have. You have some labs and you're learning that's really formative, and it's there. And mostly you get credit if you finish the lab in the time, that's totally fine. Mostly people get all full credit on labs. That's really where the learning is happening. It's OK to be wrong, and you can ask a TA. Totally fine, and just a kind of a pass/fail thing, and basically everybody passes the labs. And that's great. But we have projects. Well, projects, one of the keys of "Grading for Growth" is you get feedback. You get feedback for no penalty. So that's actually what you almost get in computer science for free. You have a compiler, or an interpreter, or maybe there's an autograder. And so you're trying something and you're getting feedback dynamically without any penalty. So you keep submitting. We'll try something else. Well, I got 9 out of 10 tests passed. That's great. That's my feedback. I've missed one test. Great. There's no penalty. I just keep working until I get it all working. And so thankfully, computer science has a computer as the oracle of things, if you will. So we have that feedback in projects, but you don't get that feedback in exams. You get one exam and hopefully you're doing the clobber policy. But you get one midterm and now you bombed it. It's there. Well, what we've done is moved our exams online. We've discovered a piece of software called PrairieLearn. It comes from University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and it allows you to have online computer-based testing. And you can pre-program the answers. You can also put in lots of variance. So you can have a question that has 1,000 variance. I have a question that has 2 to the 72 different variants. It's a question that-- that question in particular, I love it, it's taking a binary string of bits and converting it to a number. What's internally? There's a floating point representation of that, and what's the number? So if you type in your computer 3.5, there's some set of bits that means 3.5. So I'm asking the students, if I give you the set of bits, what's the number? Or if I give you a number, what's the bit? So back and forth. And we made enough variation with the width of the fields that there's 2 to the 72 different versions. So that's a question that I've written online, written it once, and I can give it for practice. The students can try over and over until they exercise that muscle. They know how to do that. And then I can have the exact same question, because there's the chance they're going to get the same number is 0, essentially. So I give the same exact question on the exam. And the answer is pre-programmed. So I don't have to do any work. I've written this question once and I'm done. And I've done that enough with other questions. And I also add questions to this that I have retake exams. And by the way, it's auto-graded. So the students take an exam, it's untimed. It's because I always felt the time pressure shouldn't be part of that. So it's an untimed exam. It's open book. You can't Google it. You can't talk to a friend. And there's an honor code that we ask them for. And then they take the exam, and it's auto-graded. So when the exam closes on Sunday night at midnight, by Monday morning at 12:01 AM, there's their grade. They know what their grade is and they know what they got right and wrong. So they get that feedback. And then a week later, I have another exam. So we have quizzes and midterms, and we have a second midterm. And so we have the quiz. And then you have a quiz retake and a quiz retake retake. So we have three total quizzes. And their grade, it's the sum of all the best of the topics. So there's five topics, let's say, in the quiz. And the second quiz has the same five topics, but different questions. So five different questions, but the same exact topic. So they kind of match like this. And I'm saying, they're grade is, let's say the first topic is abstraction, it's the maximum over any of the quizzes of the abstraction question. So if you ever showed me you know abstraction, it's like mastery learning. It's like, show me for abstraction you ever know that. OK, I got three possible chances. And if they ever get it right on the first one, then the next retake, they can skip it because they've already had the points. The points are in their pocket. So they're grade is the sum over all the topics, the max over all of the exams for each topic. So that's it. So essentially, my students have no stress. So my students take a quiz. And oh, I didn't do well. I did well one or two, but the other three, boy, I had no idea. Well, we'll tell you what's wrong. Come to office hours, we'll talk with you. And then they get another exam the next week, the same topic. So they can skip the first two and do the ones that they didn't do so well in the first try. And then they have a grade. And you watch all their grades go up. It's not that I'm lowering the bar. That's what an A means. But I'm going to give you more opportunities to do that. I'm going to give you infinite chances to resubmit your project until you finally get it right. In fact, if it's not perfect when you submit it, ask for an extension until it's perfect. I'd rather you get it right and move on and build a solid foundation than have a shaky foundation. You imagine math, I can't add, but now we're going to multiply even though I can't add. That doesn't make any sense. You should learn how to add well and keep working until you can add well before you build another layer of the house on top of that. So we want that for our students. We want them to master the work before they move on to the next thing. So don't start project two until you've mastered and gotten full points on project one. And obviously, we'll help them. We're not going to give any answers away, but we'll help them. "I'm totally stuck." Well, we'll talk to them. "What did you do?" This is what we tell our TAs. "What were you trying to do? What did they ask of you? What was the unit test case that you're missing? What was supposed to happen?" OK, "what did you try? What happens? What do we do?" So you're teaching them how to debug. "What do we do when it doesn't happen?" Let's set a breakpoint. Let's set a print statement. Let's do something in the middle to help them. So we're never giving the answer away, but we're helping them through the process and eventually that the students hopefully do well. So the third piece of it is having these retake exams to allow them multiple chances to show mastery. Again, we're not lowering the bar. In fact, if anything, the exams might even get harder. I've talked to a colleague who says, you should make sure the exam gets harder. It certainly shouldn't get easier. They just wait it out, you'll get the easy exam at the end. It should get a little bit harder. I keep them as mostly the same as I can. No curve. Absolute grading, clobbered exams, flexible extensions, retake exams. Those are the four. Usually the four, and then the fifth one is an exciting piece that I haven't mentioned before. And the fifth one is, what if your student needs one more day beyond the semester to finish that project, or two more days? Still working with the institution, can we find a way to allow those students to continue working beyond the semester? So that the end of the day, when the grades are due, isn't really a date, that's an artificial date. If we're letting them be flexible with your projects, why can't you be flexible with the semester? Now you might say, well, Dan, we can't let them rollover to the next semester. Maybe they can finish it over the winter break or the summer break, or if they can't finish the winter, you can wait till the summer break to do that. Partly because there's basically two elements in this particular class, two elements that they're doing. One is, they're doing projects, but they're doing a project against an autograder. So my autograder has infinite amount of cycles to be able to help them if they keep working beyond into January, working on their project. So it costs no staff any work to be able to have the student keep working on that project, to finish it, to finally get mastery. It's really allowing the students to do that. So with being flexible with the end of the semester deadline to be able to do that, and every semester I write a new randomized exam. And so if you tried the three quizzes and you didn't do so well, and maybe the other ones didn't do so well, well, next semester, I'm adding a fourth quiz, which is auto-graded. It costs nobody anything except for the copy and paste a student's email into the online file. Now they have exam open to them and now they can take a fourth. So now your exam is not three hands, but four hands here. All automated. No work aside from managing who's in what system and who's doing that, which is a little bit of a spreadsheet stuff, but we've got some software to help with that. So we've been trying this in our intro non-majors course, CS-10, and almost universal student approval of these policies. They just love it. The comments are, why doesn't every course do this? Why doesn't every course allow for the grace, for me to have a little bit of things that might happen to me during a week and allow me to work with that? So it's really remarkable to see overwhelming positive reactions to these policies. It is tricky, by the way. You can turn the knobs and the policies too much. One semester we said, we're not going to give any late penalties. And the students said, you mean there's no deadlines? We said, no, there are deadlines, but there's no late penalties. And the student said, you mean there's no deadlines? And as we measured it, as we looked at it, people didn't submit assignments. People said, I'll just wait till the end. They kind of kept-- it's like, well, I'll exercise later. And so students weren't turning in assignments. So it's really tricky how you adjust the knobs on this. We went from, if you asked for an extension, you get two more weeks. Well, that just meant you stop working on it. If you ever have a paper deadline, I'll give you two weeks. It basically says, I'm going to stop working until the day before the two-week deadline. So we've kind of shortened the extension. When you ask for extension, we shorten what the extension is to try to do that. The only negative comment I got-- well, two negative comments. One was, you're calling this policy "A's for All" and I only want a B. So it makes me feel like I'm not doing what you're asking of me. You're saying "A's for All," but I only want a B. And can a B be OK also? So we've kind of changed it. We don't really have a pithy name to summarize it, but really, it's letting a student get whatever grade they want to work for. So it's "A's for All," as time and effort allow. The second negative comment was that they're saying, I'm deadline-driven, and if you have this flexibility, it's not putting the pressure that I think I need for my executive function, for the way I work, to be able to get the work done by the end of the semester. It is the case that if you allow this flexibility in these classes, what ends up happening is the classes around you that have no flexibility, that have hard deadlines, they squeeze the time out of your course from your students. It's like, when you travel to India and you come back with four wonderful sculptures in rock, and jade, and everything, and you put them in your luggage, what gets squeezed? Your clothes get squeezed to make this immovable object fit in your luggage. And so if you're in an ecosystem where everyone's doing it, it's fine. But when I tried it in my one semester, I felt that students were almost taking advantage of the policies so they could just deal with life in the other classes that didn't have those flexible deadlines. So there's a little bit of that you're playing in an ecosystem, and it's a zero sum space for the students, and they have to figure out where should I spend my time. And this class allows flexibility. Well, I'm going to take advantage of that and be late on that. I mean, what we're seeing in terms of learning outcomes is that if you compare a student's grade to what they would have gotten if you remove all of these policies, if you take the project as it would have been on the deadline without the extension, if you look at their grade without the retakes, only the first exam they took, here's the numbers where the students do. But all the students' learning outcomes are much higher. If you give them the chances to get that feedback and learn it. Oh, that's how you do recursion. OK, I finally got it. And they'll show it by the second exam. Why not give them credit by the second exam? So when we compare the students before and after, if we just go back to the days before any of these equitable grading policies, and after we're seeing a huge gain of that, without changing the bar. Again, it's the same 460 for an A, and we're seeing more students bubble to that. We are still seeing students who are kind of not coming to class and not submitting anything. That same students, we still need to continue to do work. We're not perfect. We need to bring those students who are just not showing up. But that's a challenge. How do we engage the students who are just not coming to class and not submitting anything? I can't reach them. I email them, nobody emails back. That's a hard thing. So we're still working on it. But I encourage other educators to continue to explore that. And then also, look at your data, and is it moving the needle in the ways that you want to, but without lowering the standard? The key is you don't lower standards, but you support all students for success.

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TRACIE ALLEN: As we heard from Dan, the journey to "A's for All," as time and interest allow, isn't about compromising academic rigor, but about cultivating a supportive and flexible learning environment. This innovative approach, inspired by resources like "Grading for Growth," which we LinkedIn the show notes, demonstrates that with empathy and thoughtful policy changes, we can cultivate a university where every student can reach their full potential and truly find their space. Finding Space was produced by me, Tracie Allen in Research, Teaching, and Learning, or RTL, with production support from Stephanie Mackley, Betsy Greer, Laura Hart, Robert Hold and Melanie Green in RTL Communications and Media. Special thanks 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 have ideas for future episodes, email me. I'm at findingspace@berkeley.edu. We'll be back with a new episode next month.

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Share your feedback with us at findingspace@berkeley.edu

Episode 3. The Power of Relationships with Undergraduate Student Marlenne Perez

Marlenne Perez shares her experience navigating UC Berkeley as a first generation, low income, independent undergraduate student with a disability. She shares how relationships with mentors, professors and student support staff enabled her to stay at Berkeley when she thought she might drop out, and she offers advice for faculty who want to support students with disabilities but aren’t sure where to start.

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MARLENNE PEREZ: When a faculty member responds positively, it doesn't open the door for just allowing me to be a student. It opens the door for possible relationships for students like me to get a network that we don't come in having at all.
So there's a lot that goes into having accommodations and getting those needs met, because as the students with disabilities, we have so, so much experience and perspective that is so necessary in especially this day and age. And getting that little, little bit of extra support can make mountains move.

TARA MASON: Yeah.

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SPEAKER 1: 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. In our third episode, we listen to Marlenne Perez sharing her story as a first-generation, low-income, independent undergraduate student with a disability. Marlenne describes how a student mentor and accommodations helped her to stay at Berkeley when she thought she might drop out, and shares her advice for faculty who want to support students with disabilities, but aren't sure where to start.

TARA MASON: Hi, all. My name is Tara Mason, and I'm the Universal Design for Learning Consultant at the Center for Teaching and Learning. I'm so happy to be here. I am so excited to be in conversation with you today.

MARLENNE PEREZ: Thank you so much for having me.

TARA MASON: So would you like to share a little bit about yourself and what your journey at UC Berkeley has been like as a student with a disability?

MARLENNE PEREZ: Yeah. So my name is Marlenne Perez. I'm a first-gen, low-income, independent student from the Inland Empire, specifically Moreno Valley, California. I'm a third year pursuing a bachelor's degree in social welfare with a concentration in Chicanic studies and education. I'm a part of many community organizations on campus, such as NAVCAL, Stiles Hall, DSP, EOP, Puente Project, the Latino Leadership Society, and the Public Service Center.
I would say my journey at UC Berkeley as a student with a disability was pretty difficult. So a lot of what is now my mental disability stemmed from the overuse of drugs, and just what I had as a younger child that was never evaluated because I was getting good grades, you know?
But going to high school, I was introduced to what Chicano students usually face as push out. Like, getting involved with gang violence, drugs. I started using drugs very early on. I think I was 14. Survived an overdose at 16. And then I spent hours at my desk doing all this work on my homework and stuff, and then I graduated valedictorian of my high school.

TARA MASON: Wow.

MARLENNE PEREZ: Yeah. So as a first-gen student, I was the first to leave home. I was the first in my family to apply to college and do the transition from high school to college on my own.
Coming to Berkeley and living on my own and managing all my responsibilities while figuring out how to be a student-- on top of that, not knowing I had a disability at the time was extremely difficult, because I was always comparing myself to other students who had everything "figured out," quote, unquote. And like, oh, how do they know what classes to register for? Like, what's a unit? All those questions that students come in knowing. That was a hidden curriculum or hidden knowledge for me. It was a very overwhelming first year.
So I took two very difficult classes my very first semester at UC Berkeley. And I would reach out, you know? I'd be like, hey, letting you know I'm turning this in late. Hey, I don't really understand this. Can I please make an office hours-- or your office hours don't work for me. Let's make another meeting. There was always a form of contact, at least on my end. And for both of those classes, the other side was very distant.
I failed my first midterm. Completely failed. Like, literally got a point for finishing it, and that's it. And I was so discouraged from even showing my face in the lecture hall.
And so I tried really hard to reach out to the professors and connect with them, and all that stuff. But they were very distant, you know? And I would open up about struggles I was facing at the time. I was literally separating myself from my parents as an independent through UC Berkeley, and that took up a lot of my time. I was quite literally figuring out where I was going to live and how I was going to properly take care of myself.
And they were just like, OK, well, I don't have anything to tell you. It's due tomorrow. Just get it done. And I was like, no. Like, there's no way. I literally cannot do this. And so when I applied to transfer out, I didn't get into UC Riverside and UC Irvine.
And I was like, oh my gosh. I'm going to be a dropout. I'm going to literally be pushed out of the system, because I'm not doing well at all. I was so discouraged from even trying because I was like, if I'm going to have professors that literally don't care about what I'm going through the way that a teacher would have cared in high school or something like that, I can't do this.
So I had my mentor at the time from NAVCAL. And I didn't realize at the time, I guess, the amount of help I would need from my mentor. I kind of just didn't want to be a bother. I was like, no, I got it, I got it.
So my first semester, I was lying. I was under a lot of stress. And going into that space, I was just like-- I'd be like, oh, I'm good. Yeah, I'm OK. I'm very thankful that my mentor could see right through those lies. She was like, girl, you're not as energized. You're kind of pale. What's going on? And I told her everything.
And the first thing she said was, thank you so much for telling me. I'm really glad that you felt safe enough to tell me. And I was like, what? You're caring? That's crazy, you know? I didn't believe that that was possible.
And so with time, the more I was able to talk to her and stuff, the more she was the one who was like, hey, you might need some accommodations. And I was like, what? No, I'm able-bodied. That was the first thing that came to my mind. I was like, I'm able-- I don't need that.
She was like, yeah, but you can't-- like, no shade, you can't read. And I was like, oh, you're right. I actually can't read. So there was a lot of coming to terms with the way that I was actually functioning.
And with her encouragement, I had that initial call with a psychiatrist. And I would say a really eye-opening moment was when I saw the diagnosis on paper. And it's like, let's say I have a cut on my leg, and I'm treating it with cough medicine. That's literally what I was doing.
And it wasn't until I got that insight where I was like, oh my god. I've been treating myself as if I was just really anxious or whatever when I have PTSD symptoms, OCD, all these other things that I can't effectively manage.
So that was a huge first step that I had to take, which was really difficult to even come to terms with. So my mentor, she was just-- it's OK. We're going to get you situated. You're going to get everything you need. And I'm like, everything I need? What's an accommodation? So her walking me through the process of getting accommodations started off with that.
Then I was able to reach out to DSP, apply, send in all the paperwork. Got everything situated in about two weeks. And then I met with my specialist.
I told him kind of the struggles. So for example, some of the struggles that I have is being able to focus. Sometimes I get super, super anxious and I can't leave home, so I have to stay home. I get panic attacks. So I wouldn't want to be out in public while I have a panic attack, so I would always choose to stay home. And then I'm really bad at test taking. That comes with the stress of an exam and the time, and all that stuff.
So I mentioned those concerns to him, to my specialist. And immediately, OK, you're going to get excused absences. Whenever you're feeling down, you don't even have to overshare to your professor or your GSI. You just let them know, hey, my disability is flaring up. I'm going to stay home.
And then I got 150% time so I can take exams for way longer, and I can also take them in a private room. So I have that accommodation as well.
For the focusing, I got extended deadlines on homework and projects. And if I get really nervous about a presentation or whatever, usually they will allow me to accommodate, meaning I'll present in a smaller room with less folks.
And so that was-- I would say I'm one of the luckier ones. I was able to get all my accommodations met super early on. I know some friends of mine that weren't able to get all their accommodations met, and that kind of just meant for them, they needed to reach out to their specialist a bit more and be more open and vulnerable with what they're actually going through when it comes to academia.
So my mentor, Daniela Franco, graduated. An amazing mentor, the reason why I'm still at Berkeley, I would say, and NAVCAL as a community. So I work closely with Dean Tanioka, Director of NAVCAL. And he lit a spark in me that I didn't know I had by challenging me to do things that are uncomfortable like, go to a psychiatrist and tell them everything that's happened to you.
So the fact that I had a space on campus to make mistakes, that ability to bounce back after a failure or a mistake is the reason why I'm still at Berkeley. And that idea of using mistakes or failures as a learning opportunity was all fostered by NAVCAL, that confidence that they placed in me.
It was a seed that they placed. And with time, I was able to water it with experiences, with crying, with growing, with reaching out to folks that I cared about, and just having my community there for me. So without NAVCAL, I wouldn't be here, because NAVCAL also introduced me to folks like the Director of DSP, Carmen, who's my number 1 mentor. I love her.
Other folks on campus. Pablo Gonzalez, who is that professor on campus that made it easy for students to reach out to professors, debunking that stigma. Joseph Sell from Financial Aid, he walked me through my independence appeal. And taking that first step of, hi, my name is Marlenne, this is what I'm going through, this is what I need your help with, that was so scary.
But then I had those allies that were there for me. And now I could do all of that stuff. But it's not about me anymore. It's about the freshmen or the transfers that are coming in. And now it's my turn to teach them everything that I learned. That hidden curriculum that they don't know, I'm teaching it to them.
So being at Berkeley, as hard as it is, serves as like a healing for me, because I'm helping other students. Older or younger than me, I've always been a mentor, you know? So I feel like I've found my place at Berkeley, and now I'm transitioning into grad school and all that stuff that I'll do post-grad. So it's another journey I'll embark on, but I'm just excited to figure it out.

TARA MASON: So--

MARLENNE PEREZ: [LAUGHS]

TARA MASON: --I am just-- I am so touched by your story. I think this is a great way to launch us into thinking about, what do you wish faculty knew about the impact of accommodations from your perspective?

MARLENNE PEREZ: When I got my accommodations, it made-- it literally took a weight off my shoulders. I closed my laptop after my call with my specialist, and I took a breath. And then I got an email, like, 15 minutes later, saying all these accommodations were given to me, and they're in action.
It was almost life changing, I would say, because I was so scared how Berkeley was going to play out for me. And if I didn't have my accommodations, I don't even know if I'd be doing this podcast right now. I would have left Berkeley. Getting them early on in my academic career has saved me greatly.
A lot of my accommodations allow me to properly take care of myself. If I didn't have the flexibility or, I would say, the basic needs-- to me, they're basic needs. But to other folks, it may seem as like, oh, they're being really nice to you, or super flexible.
Like, hey, I actually have so much on my plate. I'm quite literally trying to get me and my family out of poverty. I'm trying to actively get my parents citizenship. And on top of that, I work three jobs to sustain myself. So I apologize if me not turning in an assignment on time is a poor reflection of me as a student, because it is not.
And I've come to terms with the fact that my bad grades or my inability to turn in things on time normal students could do-- "normal," quote, unquote-- is not an accurate reflection of me as a student. Because as a student, I come with so many responsibilities that other students don't ever get to face.
When I'm finally able to focus and have this hour, 50 minutes where I'm actually learning, I see that as a great privilege, an insane privilege. Because that day, I felt good enough to go to campus. That day, I felt safe enough to walk into class. That day, I felt confident enough in myself to put my stuff down and put my laptop down and get to studying, and get to listening and learning, when other days, I just don't have that ability. I don't have that privilege. So if I were denied accommodations, I would have been denied my right to a proper education as a student.
So when a faculty member responds positively, it doesn't open the door for just allowing me to be a student. It opens the door for possible relationships for students like me to get a network that we don't come in having at all. So there's a lot that goes into having accommodations and getting those needs met, because as students with disabilities, we have so, so much experience and perspective that is so necessary in especially this day and age. And getting that little, little bit of extra support can make mountains move.

TARA MASON: Yeah, I 100% agree with you. And I think that it makes our spaces better for all humans.

MARLENNE PEREZ: 100%.

TARA MASON: Yeah. And then there's also just the broader benefit to our learning community, bringing a rich perspective, thinking about things in ways that no one else had that was unanticipated. It's such a good thing.

MARLENNE PEREZ: Mm-hmm. I agree.

TARA MASON: I think this is a great way to launch us into thinking about a time where a professor did something, big or small, that made you feel valued, included, that really made you feel very supported in that moment. I think that would be helpful for us.

MARLENNE PEREZ: I got really lucky, I would say, during my time at Berkeley. I've always had-- every semester, I've always had a professor or GSI who's very understanding. Like, extremely understanding. I would say currently, my Social Welfare professor, Dr. Jill Berrick, she's amazing.
So I reached out to her, letting her know, hey, at this time I was transitioning to a new medication, so I was feeling horrible. And she responded back, like, no worries. Please take care of yourself. I'm always here for you. And so I was like, OK, this professor is there for me. I'm going to go talk to her during office hours.
And a lot of my story, it's unique. A lot of folks on campus don't really have or didn't have the struggles that I had going through elementary, middle school, high school, and now to college. I was just talking about who I am, where I came from, what I'm passionate about.
And her acknowledgment of the work that I've done, regardless of my disability or not, was something I really needed to hear that day. And so her support for my love for educational policy, educational equity, the fact that she knows a little bit more about my story and that she's so eager to share resources or jobs or internships with me, or in class if we're talking about a subject that's related to educational policy, oh, Marlenne, do you want to share a little bit about that? It's just that acknowledgment that I'm there.
It made the process of reaching out for help, at least to professors, a lot easier. Because if there is a professor that's not going to be as kind to me as she was, I still always know that she will be in my corner to support me. So I appreciate her greatly. I love taking her classes, and she really made me feel heard and valued in the space.
And having that one beam, I would say, that one little candle that can help ignite that spark in a student, we need more people like that on this campus, for sure. Everywhere.

TARA MASON: And what I love too that you said, it's so important that we know that we're all a part of this community. And you don't have to be everyone's person in their corner. You just have to come from a place of care. So my final question, what advice would you give to a faculty member who wants to support students with disabilities, but isn't sure where to start?

MARLENNE PEREZ: Yeah, I would say introduce yourself. Make students feel safe enough. And you're like, oh, well, what does safe mean? Talk about yourself.
We want to know why you went to the school that you went to, and I want to know why you're a professor. I want to know why you're teaching. I want to know what happened to you in grade school that changed your whole trajectory. It makes a student feel comfortable sharing even a little bit about themselves.
If a student isn't doing so hot in your class, you really don't know what's going on in their home life or their personal life, or if they're trying to get their accommodations. Like, there's so many processes here on campus that take up so much time and energy.
And so make yourself available to students. Listen to what they have to say. Check in. Reach out. If there's something they mentioned about, oh, they're a political science student, they want this internship, I'm going to send that to them.
The little things that students mention to you, if you're able to remember them and bring it back at a later time, will just reassure the student that they were heard. And that's all we really need right now, is to be heard, to be acknowledged, to be valued.
Because at the end of the day, being a student with a disability doesn't mean I'm any less than. I have stuff to say. I have plans to change the world, you know?
And so listen to what your students have to say, because you're going to find groundbreaking students. You're going to find change makers. You're going to find folks who just needed to be listened to. Be that change. Be that person that lights up that little fire for them or plants that seed for a student. Because you can really, really change and alter someone's trajectory for the better.
Remember that a student with a disability is not lazy, is not not capable, because we literally just have so much going on that the changes that you can make in your curriculum to be better accessible for us can really, really support us in the long run. Because we've already made it to this point with or without support. So just imagine what we can do with all the support that you can give us.

TARA MASON: Mm-hmm. This has been so great. Thank you.

MARLENNE PEREZ: [LAUGHS]

TARA MASON: I am so touched by your story. I am so honored that you shared so much with me. This has been a great learning experience for me. Thank you.

MARLENNE PEREZ: Thank you so much for having me. Thank you for letting me share my thoughts. And I'm very thankful that y'all have allowed me to remind myself of the capable student that I am, so thank you.

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SPEAKER 1: 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.
This was the final episode of our first season, but we're already working on season 2, which will launch in the fall semester. We're looking for more stories from the disability community, so if you would like to recommend one, please send us an email at findingspace@berkeley.edu. We wish you the best as you get through finals, and wish you a restful and happy summer. We'll see you back here in the fall.

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Share your feedback with us at findingspace@berkeley.edu

Episode 2. Accommodations Can Transform Your Teaching - a Conversation with DSP Faculty Liaisons, Jonah Levy and Justin Davidson

Faculty Liaisons to the Disabled Students' Program (DSP), Jonah Levy and Justin Davidson talk with Marisella Rodriguez and Tara Mason from the Center for Teaching and Learning, explaining how they support their faculty peers in the accommodations process and why they build bridges between their faculty colleagues and staff at DSP and Disability Access & Compliance (DAC). They also share how accommodating students with disabilities has transformed their teaching for the better, and made their courses more satisfying to teach.

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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.

[BLUE DOT SESSIONS, "GOLDEN GRASS"]

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.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Jonah and Justin’s instructor guide to DSP accommodations (you’ll also find their contact info here)
Demystifying Accommodations, the hour-long video conversation from Fall 2023 we excerpted for this episode

Share your feedback with us at findingspace@berkeley.edu

Episode 1: Inclusive Excellence and the UC Berkeley Disabled Students' Program with Carmen Varela

In this premiere episode of Finding Space, we dive into what ⁠UC Berkeley Disabled Students' Program (DSP)⁠ Executive Director, Carmen Varela wishes that every faculty member and support staff on campus knew about the DSP and the work they do.

Marisella Rodriguez and Tara Mason from the Center for Teaching and Learning talk with Varela, and they share what motivates their decades of work on behalf of people with disabilities, what is at stake for students who need accommodations, and why DSP specialists are some of the most creative resources on campus.

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Finding Space Podcast Episode 1 Inclusive Excellence and the UC Berkeley Disabled Students’ Program with Carmen Varela

CARMEN VARELA: I think a lot of people on campus think of the Disabled Students' Program as, oh, they're just pumping out accommodations left and right, and that's what they do. But the bigger picture is--
[THEME MUSIC]
SPEAKER 2: 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.

MARISELLA RODRIGUEZ: Hi, everyone. I'm Marisella Rodriguez. My pronouns are she/her, and I'm the inclusive teaching manager at the Center for Teaching and Learning. And I'm happy to be in conversation with you both.
TARA MASON: So my name is Tara Mason, and I am the Universal Design for Learning consultant at the Center for Teaching and Learning. And I would love to have Carmen introduce herself.
CARMEN VARELA: Hi, I'm Carmen Varela. I'm the executive director for the Disabled Students' Program here at UC Berkeley, and it's great to be here. MARISELLA RODRIGUEZ: Carmen, so glad to have you here and be in conversation and really just have the time to sit with you and not be on Zoom maybe for a moment and take a break from our busy campus movements to just be in conversation with each other face to face and along with Tara. It feels really good to be here. We wanted to start with an opportunity for you to share about who you are, your journey here, your expertise, and tell your story to folks who are listening. So I wonder if you could share how you fell in love with this work.
CARMEN VARELA: Yeah, thank you, Marisela and Tara. I'm excited to be here also in conversation with you about the things that we love and that we hold dear to our heart. And the work that I am very honored to do here is around disability and advancing justice for people with disabilities. I've been doing it for 30 years. I'm going to date myself. It's been a long time and on different levels. Where it started for me is-- I'll have to go way back. That probably has to be when my nephew Jesse was born, and he's a person with a disability. He's a person with Asperger's. And I remember my older sister really struggling with the school system and helping her navigate special ed. And then I had my own kids, and my kids are people with disabilities as well. That's where my curiosity came in. That's where I was trying to figure out what's happening. What does this mean? And then I was really fortunate to have some really amazing women in my life that taught me about the law and about my children's rights and what to look out for and went to meetings with me and were like, see, you can do it. And I was like, oh yeah, I can do this. But also feeling empowered, understanding the value of information and having that information and using it as a tool for my own children. What do they say? There's that saying the personal is political. Well, I don't know how more personal it can get, how much more personal it can get than our children. So my very first job was at the University of Texas at El Paso, and I worked as a coordinator for their disability services office there for a little bit and then really learned, and I was like, oh, people with disabilities go to college. And also in-- it was in the '90s-- I'm going to go back here in 19--
MARISELLA RODRIGUEZ: Let's go back.
CARMEN VARELA: 90-something. I woke up one day, and I couldn't see out of my right eye and didn't know what was happening. And the doctors didn't know what was happening, and then got diagnosed with a very rare autoimmune disease that lodges itself in your retinas and then the complications of that throughout the years. Had a really traumatic experience with the doctors in Dallas that caused me to not go see a doctor for 20 years. And fast forward to about 2017, 2018, I began to lose my vision slowly. And that was a wake up call for me. I'd been already doing all this work in the field of disability, and then all of a sudden, then I became a part of the community that I was doing my research on and that I was doing my dissertation on. And I couldn't drive anymore. I didn't drive for about a year or two years. I had some corrective surgeries, and it's better, not all the way better, and it fluctuates but gave me a whole other perspective about this work that I had been doing for such a long time. And I remember telling students-- I was in my doctoral studies at that time, but forever I'd been telling my students with disabilities it might take you a little longer to finish your degree, but it's OK. Keep your eye on the prize and just keep going even if it takes you longer. And then I had to-- I had to take my own advice.
MARISELLA RODRIGUEZ: Wow, you had to internalize that for yourself. What a shift.
CARMEN VARELA: Yeah.
MARISELLA RODRIGUEZ: Yeah.
CARMEN VARELA: Yeah. And then I did a stint at Disability Rights California for 16 years, wanted to do law school, and then took a dramatic shift into higher ed and are really glad to be here. Worked at a couple of universities and are now here at Berkeley. And so that was an abridged version. One day we'll go to coffee, and I'll give you the whole version.
TARA MASON: Let's do the whole thing.
MARISELLA RODRIGUEZ: Starting with the people that you love, having that be a marker for you at a point in time and having it circle back to you yourself and the love and care you have for yourself, that-- that's quite a story.
TARA MASON: Yeah.
CARMEN VARELA: Thank you.
MARISELLA RODRIGUEZ: Tara, what brought you to this place? What do you love about this work?
TARA MASON: So, like you, Carmen, I could date myself a little bit. I've been in the field for several decades now. Started-- but I started in the field as a paraprofessional. I had a friend who worked at the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired, and they were like you'll love it here. You should come work here. And I was like great. My very first night on the job, it was my job to wait for the overnighter to get there before I could leave. So all of the students were finishing up their hygiene programs, and I went to the bathroom to help one of the students get finished up. And I came in and she had her prosthetic eyes out in her hand. And I looked at her, and I was like you're going to have to walk me through this. Oh, how do you put those back in? That was my first night on the job.
CARMEN VARELA: Oh, my goodness.
TARA MASON: Yeah.
CARMEN VARELA: The school for the blind, isn't that on Lamar?
TARA MASON: Mmm hmm.
CARMEN VARELA: Oh, I remember. I lived in Austin for a few years.
TARA MASON: It's the best.
CARMEN VARELA: Uh huh.
TARA MASON: It's the best. And so I worked there as a paraprofessional for lots of years. I also went back and worked there as a teacher of students with visual impairments and also just worked as a special educator and lots of different places. And then I ended up going into higher ed doing special education teacher prep and worked with future special education teachers. I feel really lucky to get to do this work.
MARISELLA RODRIGUEZ: That's nice.
CARMEN VARELA: That makes two of us, Tara.
MARISELLA RODRIGUEZ: Yeah. Three of us.
TARA MASON: I know. Yes.
CARMEN VARELA: What about you, Mari.
MARISELLA RODRIGUEZ: Well, really I would say yes. I know I've been-- I've been thinking a lot about what are my sources of restoration, joy, love in this work. As we're recording this at a moment in time where the climate is just god awful, you turn left and right, and there are closed doors and barriers to doing any kind of equity and inclusion work. And so I've been actually thinking about this. Why did I fall in love with this work? And I don't know that I can feel that love at this moment in time, but what I always come back to is I had this college instructor in undergrad. And you could tell looking back that she really pinpointed me as somebody who needed the care and attention in a predominantly white classroom, school, city. And she would always say you don't know yet, but you'll know. You will. And so I take that and bring it to my work right now is. Maybe I don't know yet what's going to work, but we're going to know and we're going to look back and feel like we did what we could. And that's what I'm bringing to my work right now in this era. I do feel lucky that I'm with the right people sitting here today.
CARMEN VARELA: We don't always know I think in life and just in life in general. And I think it's about-- for me, I was just having this conversation with one of my staff members, which was things might get difficult. As difficult as they get, whether whatever's happening with the new administration, whether it's just things that we have no control of in this important work that we're so lucky to do together that I have to stay rooted in my conviction about why I am doing this work, which for me is really about how do we make sure that people with disabilities have access to education so they can live a life that is self-determined, that they can have an opportunity to move into employment if that's what they want to do, to not have to depend on a social net, that they can actually work, have health insurance, have a home, have a family, do all the things that so many people take for granted. I think about it. Every student that we lose, hate is just the effects of that I think. And then I think on the opposite-- on the opposite side of that, every student that we affect positively and comes out of here with a degree-- even the generational effects of that. Not only are we impacting that student but generations of-- we know that poverty is generational, so if people can lift themselves out of that, we know so many people with disabilities live in poverty. And so I think about really how big our work is. I think a lot of people on campus think of the Disabled Students' Program as, oh, they're just pumping out accommodations left and right, and that's what they do. But the bigger picture is the impact on society, the impact on human beings. How do we begin to close that employment gap and that poverty gap for people with disabilities.
MARISELLA RODRIGUEZ: When we think about the cycle of poverty and the cycle of lack of opportunity, I really saw that play out in K-12. As I would walk into an IEP meeting with my student and their parents, it would be very common for a parent to share with me that they also had an IEP in school. And I think a lot about the systems, the systems at play. It makes me wonder about what do we want instructors to know. When I think about that system lens, I was always doing lots of dancing around what I wanted people to know because what we were doing was perpetuating the system. It was perpetuating people not having those opportunities, not having access. And so I'm curious, what would be some of the things that you would love for instructors, different supportive staff at Berkeley to know?
CARMEN VARELA: Yeah, that's a great question. I think what I would say to faculty-- about faculty is that they are one of the most important partners we have on this campus to do this work. We can't do this work without them, their cooperation, their understanding, their collaboration. And I think I would want to challenge them to not see or view accommodations as giving people or students an advantage. And I think often in K-12, we see that all the time. We see this anywhere where there's an accommodation or an adjustment that needs to be made, and then I think then the comeback oftentimes is it's unfair to everybody else. And I have to bring it back to this isn't about everybody else. This is about this one person. This is about what this student with a disability needs in order to have equal access and that we're not doing this work because we're trying to give them more work to do or to be a headache, but it's really about looking at this human being comprehensively and what they need in order to be able to access this thing that the faculty and most of us here value the most, which is knowledge. That's why we're all here. Knowledge is the highest form of currency on any campus, and people with disabilities have the right to access that knowledge as well. And so what we're doing through what my teams are doing through their amazing and incredible work is providing that access to that knowledge so that they, too, can come out of this place and do some incredible stuff in this world. And I think that's what I would want them to see and what their part is in it. There's so-- they're such an important part of the equation for our students.
TARA MASON: And I think DSP case managers, the specialist, those are some of the most creative people on campus. The level of problem solving that is happening as someone is thinking really deeply about how to solve a learning problem. These are some very creative people coming up with creative solutions, and I think that that's something that I would love to see for instructors to have an opportunity to enjoy that creativity, that creative moment with specialists as they problem solve. Let's try to figure it out together. These are some very creative people that you're getting to work with that might also spark a lot of creativity in other areas of your teaching that you didn't realize maybe needed a little life.
CARMEN VARELA: That's exactly right. And I think-- when I think about the work that they do right, it's so highly nuanced, it's so individualized, they do have to be very creative, and they've got to ask questions, sometimes hard questions to faculty about why can't you do this. And they're also open because oftentimes faculty will come up with an idea, well, why don't we do this, Something that maybe the specialist didn't think about like that might work. Let's try it. So it becomes-- it's just-- it's about creating a space where you can collaborate, problem solve, and not feel in opposition to each other and really thinking we're really here on the same team, trying to ensure student success in the ways that we are tasked to do it in our own individual roles. What is it that our students-- that these students need to be able to access knowledge and to access the curriculum and to be able to get out of here successfully? For example, the vice provost for undergraduate education is really looking at how can we do testing. How can we help faculty do more of the work that they want to do and maybe not have to think as much about accommodations? And what is that going to look like? So I think we're trying to problem solve the testing piece and try to find common ground and come together to do that. And so what we're doing, this amazing and incredible work is providing that access to that knowledge so that they, too, can come out of this place and do some incredible stuff in this world. And I think that's what I would want them to see and what their part is in it. They're so-- they're such an important part of the equation for our students. And I think I would also want them to know what the consequences are, which we talked about for our students or for students with disabilities to not get out of here with their degrees. And I'm not saying give them their degree because they're a student with a disability. I'm saying just help us do our job in ensuring that students have their accommodations, which I want to say the majority of faculty do. But it's challenging them to think about also what happens when they don't have access. What are those consequences? What happens? You're out of school. You got to go to work. You're probably going to get a minimum wage paying job if you're lucky. If it's a 40 hour job, you're lucky. What does life look like? And I think sometimes when you don't know or haven't seen or don't have that experience of knowing what people really go through who don't have that like my clients who were living in spas or on the street or were doing everything possible to try to get access to education because they knew it was going to change their life, I don't know that people think about that. I don't know that people think about what it's like for somebody to think that they might never be able to have a family because they can't afford to have a family or to have a home where they can take care of their disability related-- home is medicine. Having a place to live is medicine for people, right? And what does that look like? And if you've never not had that or if you've never not known anybody who has experience that, you might never think about that. And so those would be my words for faculty and people working with students.
TARA MASON: I love that so much. There's a sensitivity that people from all these different perspectives, all these different lenses, bring to any pursuit of knowledge, a sensitivity, a different experience, a different lived experience. And we're missing out on that opportunity as well. I think a lot's at stake there. CARMEN VARELA: Absolutely.
MARISELLA RODRIGUEZ: I think especially at a research intensive university, this is where the elite of the elite come to do their research, come to work. I am always impressed by my staff colleagues who have such high degrees and advanced education, these skill sets that are just hard to attain if you are facing systemic barriers. And so in every layer of people power in this campus is likely the elite of the elite unless you get support or you're uplifted in some way whether that's a person, a system, a program, financial aid. And what you're really calling to action, Carmen, is for us to reflect about who we are, where we come from, and how all of that impacts the way we move on campus, the way we teach, the way we learn, the way we work. I think that's a really important call to action there, especially at this moment in time.
CARMEN VARELA: Thank you for bringing that together.
MARISELLA RODRIGUEZ: Yeah.
CARMEN VARELA: Absolutely, Marisela Thank you.
TARA MASON: That's Marisela there. CARMEN VARELA: That's great.
TARA MASON: Incredible.
CARMEN VARELA: Thank you.
MARISELLA RODRIGUEZ: We've covered so much. We've touched on a lot of small and lofty vision points, these calls to action. And I'm wondering if you, Carmen, have in mind for this moment in time or just your tenure as a leader on campus in general what are some concrete changes you're inspired to work towards. What are these clear and specific changes, measurements, indicators that you're really hoping to see in your work?
CARMEN VARELA: Yeah, I think for me, part of it is that message is helping to bring that understanding about the importance of the work, that larger understanding, not just how many accommodations are you doing, how many students do you have, but really helping the campus understand the importance of the work that my teams do, that DSP teams do, the value of that work, the value of the students that we serve. So for me, part of it is moving that needle closer towards inclusive excellence. So I feel like if I can help shift people's perspectives, then hopefully they will be able to maybe somewhat shift the way that they move and the way that they may be engaged or interact with their students or with other people with disabilities and their family members when they leave. And I think in terms of my leadership and my work with my staff is figuring out ways to help them do their work better. We always feel like we're under-resourced. The number of students keeps increasing. The number of staff hasn't increased. We recently were very fortunate to be able to start hiring more specialists because they work so hard and there's-- burnout is a real thing. And so how do we keep them also at a point where the work is the work and the work has to get done and we all come to work, but then how do we also have enough people doing the work so that people don't feel so burnt out all the time? I would say doing the beyond compliance work as well. We also think of the Disability Cultural Community Center, thinking about the value-- even though they're not an entity or a space where they're doing accommodations, but they're doing this really important work where they are talking about disability justice and joy and showing examples of that and highlighting the voices and experiences of students and people with disabilities because I think we get so caught up in academics and in grades and in GPAs and we forget that there's this other really just as important piece, which is the socialization and the belonging, feeling like you fit and like you're valued and like you're a part of something. And so I think that work is also incredibly important. It's thinking not just compliance but thinking beyond compliance. What can we all do that isn't just a floor, isn't just the most fundamental basic thing that you have to do, but what can you do and to want to do it. I remember I learned this with one of my classes around the science of learning where they said you can be somebody who can do something, but if you don't want to do it, you're not going to do it. You're somebody who doesn't know how to do something but really wants to do it, guess what? They're going to do it. So how do we move people, motivate them, give them the information that they need to want to make those changes.
MARISELLA RODRIGUEZ: And when we prioritize all these other pieces that are happening outside of the classroom-- sense of belonging, identity shaping, self-efficacy, and learning-- that is going to translate into performance in the classroom. Research shows that these things are connected. And so what might it mean for Berkeley to shift our priorities that it's not just about teaching in a classroom space, but we're teaching all the time outside the classroom. Students are teaching each other, and these campus spaces that you're talking about through your program, it's just has undeniable value towards effective learning when we think about it at the Center for Teaching and Learning.
TARA MASON: Well, and I feel like there's this desire for problems to be easily solved. And I think that productive struggle is good. We're going to have a lot of better ideas if we have a lot of deep conversation and have some hard work in front of us. And I think that sometimes that can be really hard in the moment to settle in to that hard work. And that's one of the things that I really noticed about you, Carmen. I have to say you really settle in to hard problems, and you're there to do that hard work. And I think that's really amazing. I'd like to say that that's something that I feel is something that I have some experience with as well that I don't expect problems to be easy. And I expect it to take some time. And I expect my first idea probably wasn't going to be the best one, and we're going to have to try something else. And that's OK.
CARMEN VARELA: Or that things don't look like in the end like what we thought they were going to look like but to be OK with it because things just take different shapes, and I think that grappling, you've got to-- feels like a grapple-- you're literally on the floor grappling with somebody and trying to figure something out. And I don't know that I would characterize it as fun, but it's the kind of stuff that really makes me think and really gets me going. I'm like we've got something. We've got a way to do this. Maybe we're not seeing it in the same way. Here we go. It's like here we go. Bring it. Let's do this. MARISELLA RODRIGUEZ: Settle in.
CARMEN VARELA: But to not be afraid of it, to not be afraid of it. And I think we've got a lot of great people on this campus who are ready to grapple and are ready to figure some stuff out and make good things happen. And that's exciting.
TARA MASON: It is. It's so worthwhile. I like intellectual problem solving, so I'm having fun.
MARISELLA RODRIGUEZ: Well, that's just a really great note to wrap up on. This place of passion and shared commitment is energizing. So I'm here for it. Thank you, Carmen--
CARMEN VARELA: Thank you.
MARISELLA RODRIGUEZ: For being here. Thank you so much.
CARMEN VARELA: Thank you, Tara Thank you. Marisela. [END THEME] SPEAKER 2: Finding Space was produced by Traie Allen and Stephanie Mackley in Research, Teaching, and Learning or RTL with production support from Betsy Greer and Laura Hart and 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. And special thanks to the Disabled Students' Program at UC Berkeley. 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.

Share your feedback: ⁠findingspace@berkeley.edu⁠