From Sharing Data to Sharing Stories

ORAHEAD Fall 2024 Conference

Presented by Kaela Parks�Dean of Inclusive & Accessible Education

Portland Community College

The Big Picture - Key Questions

The work we do is important…and the way we think about it, and talk about it matters. A lot.

Key questions we’ll examine in our time together today:

• What are we here to do?
• How does our work align with our values?
• What does our approach to data and storytelling have to do with it?

What are we here to do?

Disability in higher education can mean many different things. Depending on our role and the experiences we’ve had, we might say we are here to ensure:

• Students with disabilities get the auxiliary aids and services they need
• Faculty are educated on the accommodation process and do their part
• Complaints and grievances are addressed in a timely manner
• Institution remains in compliance with federal requirements
• Institution promotes the full participation of disabled people

The Accommodation Process

The accommodation process is described as five steps students follow:

Register, Review Options, Provide Documentation, Seek Accommodations, Notify Professors…but we do more than than facilitate the accommodation process

Source: Government Accountability Office

From AHEAD white paper on staffing needs

“The work of disability service provision is a continuum of responsibilities based on several factors that are unique to the institution and their students.”

Appendix A - Recommended areas for data collection and reporting

“The data that a DRO (Disability Resource Office) collects must effectively tell the story of the work being done. While it is common to focus on specific disability counts (such as the number of students with ADHD), this information rarely reflects the DRO’s work, impact, and resource gaps.”

Source: Understanding and Assessing Disability Resource Office Staffing Needs

The kind of data we often gather

Counts

• How many students with disabilities (and which type of disability)
• How many accommodation requests (and which type of accommodation)

Trends

• What rate of change (and in which direction)
• What correlations (and between which variables)

Purpose

• Often tied to projections or justifications for resources (staffing, space, etc)
• May be part of regular reporting or may be in response to requests

AHEAD Program Evaluation and Review Practices

57% of respondents had not done a program review in the last 5 years

Topical Report located in AHEAD members only area

Respondents reported many uses for program review data.

The most common purpose reported by 84% of campuses is to provide an internal tool to enhance practice and program planning for the disability resource office.

Different data for different purposes

When we are advocating for additional resources, we may be focused on:

• Acknowledgement of unmet needs (demand)
• Good stewardship (efficient use of resources)

When we are advocating for engagement, our approach may be focused on:

• Experiences of disabled students
• Examples of successful collaborations

We may highlight different perspectives

Student Voice

• Satisfaction surveys
• Focus groups or other qualitative approaches
• Student led programming - events, publications, media
• Student leadership positions with participation on institutional committees

Faculty Voice

• Satisfaction surveys
• Subject area studies, grant efforts, or special projects
• Accessibility related college service or committee participation

Data Pair/Share

Slido.com�#1371431

What kind of data do we tend to collect and share?

The opportunity to influence change

“The data we collect—and the data we don’t—reflect our values and what we think is important.”

Source - Data in Collective Impact from Stanford Social Innovation Review

“If data masks disparities by race, ethnicity, gender, or other identities in the communities we serve, �we fail to address inequity and miss the opportunity to influence change that really matters.”

Example in Action: Program Reviews

Equity Gaps & Program Review

Program Review is required for all academic areas

• Institutional effectiveness provides data dashboards
• Demographics are included: Race/Ethnicity, Gender, Age, Pell Eligibility, etc.

Program Review data is meant to address equity gaps

Equity gap refers to any disparity in a metric like graduation rate or term-to-term persistence along racial, socioeconomic, gender, or other demographic characteristic.

These gaps lead the college to ask “what processes, policies or practices are in place that create or exacerbate these disparities?”

Disability in Program Review Data

We asked for disability to be included as a demographic

• We use AIM - so we already had a nightly file transfer
• Institutional Effectiveness uses that list of ID numbers without us needing to flag the students in the college student information system

Our Annual Program and Discipline Update reports are available at: https://www.pcc.edu/institutional-effectiveness/program-profiles/

Sparking curiosity

We hope this type of quantitative data will open the door to further inquiry.

• If the rate of participation is higher or lower for students with disabilities than for other demographics - why is that?
• If the course pass rates are higher or lower, why?
• What can faculty learn by talking to students with disabilities who have participated in these programs?

We have Accessibility Specialists and Student Advocates ready to partner with our faculty and academic leadership!

Why is this something we pushed for?

Put simply. Our values.

We are committed to promoting the full participation of people with disabilities. This means we have to look beyond individual accommodation.

We reject the invisibility that allow ableism and systemic racism to impede progress - and we believe that you have to shine a light on the data to have any chance of identifying and addressing inequities.

We have built structures and partnered with our academic leaders to ensure accountability and the critical quantitative analysis is just the first step.

Understanding our Underpinnings

Charge Sets Responsibilities

Values

Guide our Decisions

Mission

Directs our Aim

Mission - for the college and for our team

PCC College Mission - Portland Community College supports student success by delivering access to quality education while advancing economic development and promoting sustainability in a collaborative culture of diversity, equity and inclusion.

AEDR Website - Equal access is a shared responsibility. It is not achieved through accommodation alone. Accessible Ed & Disability Resources leads the PCC community to recognize disability as a valued aspect of diversity, embrace access as a matter of social justice, and promote universal design and inclusive environments.

Core values for our team

• Disability is a natural part of human variation and vital to the development of communities
• Disability is a social/political category that includes individuals from diverse backgrounds
• Equal access can not be achieved through accommodation alone
• Design that promotes inclusion is a matter of social justice and civil rights
• Person-centered approaches demand leveraging creative solutions

Accommodation is only part of the picture

We have responsibility for managing student accommodation (our charge)

• Data related to the accommodation process is gathered and shared
• Analysis is focused on efficiency in coordinating services and resources

We have a goal to promote the full participation of people with disabilities

• This requires different kinds of data (participation and pass rates)
• Analysis may be related to identifying disparities across demographics, locations, modalities, and programs of study and closing equity gaps

Promoting full participation

At Portland Community College, we do have a goal of promoting full participation.

We have defined a comprehensive transition plan to help us track accountability and we have metrics that include things like:

• Addressing barriers in our built and digital environments
• Increasing the percentage of employees with accessibility related training
• Closing equity gaps in student outcomes

Learn more about our Comprehensive Transition Plan

From JPED Practice Brief

Not Another All White Study:

Challenging Color-Evasiveness Ideology in Disability Scholarship

Volume 33, Issue 3 (special issue)

“We define color-evasiveness as a racist ideology rooted in White supremacy to avoid accountability, acknowledgment, and identifying historical and continuous race-based discrimination while instantaneously allowing race neutral justifications, laws, policies, and beliefs to persist as normal.”

Oregon is a predominantly white state with a troubling history of explicit racism

From PDX Scholar Report

Center to Advance Racial Equity

https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/care_pubs/2/

“This research seeks to answer an emerging question in public school debates: whether race is just a proxy for income when it comes to disparities in educational outcomes among Oregon’s K-12 students.

The pattern of findings is absolutely clear…We conclude that educators must address elements of racism across their institutions.”

Persistent Patterns need to be Disrupted

We can see (in K-12 and postsecondary data) that disability inequity varies across racial identity groups, and racial inequity persists across disability status groups

Critical Quantitative approaches:

• Use data at large scale to reveal inequalities in processes and outcomes,
• Question models, measures, and analytic practices to offer competing practices
• Conduct culturally relevant research by studying institutions and people in context

Example in Action: Student Voice

From JPED Volume 33�Issue 3, Fall 2020

Special Issue: Challenges and Opportunities for Assessing, Evaluating, and Researching Disability in Higher Education, pages 209-313

…creating cultures in the classroom and co-curriculum that value disabled students’ insights rather than perceive them as tragic burdens.

Student Advocates

The PCC Disability Cultural Alliance

www.pcc.edu/dca

​

Quote from the Let’s Talk Editor

“The Let's Talk! Podcast Collective is a student-run multimedia storytelling platform that began during pandemic lockdowns in 2021. I was one of many people who were going to school, working, and living online, and as a student found myself accessing disability accommodations to support my learning needs.

Through this access I was offered a first-of-it’s-kind position at PCC, a disability cultural advocate. The brand new job role was specific to students who experience disabilities, and our job was deceptively simple - to represent ourselves. How do we want to show up in the world?”

Quotes from a student advocate

“I was always super smart in the classroom and could make A's on everything, but didn't know how to have relationships and friendships with other students and professors and I just have to credit AEDR or for the kindness and the compassion that they have shown to me as a disabled, autistic, non binary human being, the amount of love and support that they have poured into me as a human being has revolutionized my life.”

“I have watched myself grow as a human being. I have watched myself grow as an employee. I've watched myself grow as a mutual aid worker, and it's all because of PCC and AEDR, and I'm super, super grateful because everything that these individuals have poured into me, I can take and pour back into the community.”

Storytelling Collaborations

Examples of partnerships and collaborations active at PCC:

• Stories published by our marketing team on a variety of topics such as: faculty making course shells accessible, Delta Alpha Pi, accessible maps, etc.
• Center for Teaching and Learning Excellence partnership on Enhancing Accessibility Across Disciplines
• Community Based Learning Accessibility Awareness Campaign with Multimedia faculty who are involving the students in their courses in accessibility focused storytelling work

Whose stories are getting told?

Which voices are being centered in the stories of disability in your institution?

Does it tend to be:

• The perspectives of disability professionals, who are talking about what is like to coordinate accommodation for students?
• The perspectives of faculty?
• The perspectives of students?
• None (or all) of the above?

Story Pair/Share

Slido.com�#1371431

Whose stories get told?

Closing Thoughts

The way we treat disability

• Disability is normal but there is stigma, and while there are more disability identity conversations happening now, it is still most often talked about in terms of medical problems or legal obligations.
• Disability has often been left out of diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts and this has tended to reinforce a message that disability identity is not valued.
• When disability has been recognized, it has often been in isolation - without taking into account the ways that race, gender, and other aspects of identity interact and impact the disability experience in different contexts.

The focus on accommodation

• Colleges and universities seldom offer ways for people to claim disability as part of their identity aside from requesting auxiliary aids and services.
• Institutional approaches are often focused on compliance with Section 504 rather being robustly aligned with the spirit of the ADA.
• Colleges often track accommodation for fiscal management, without including disability as a demographic within student success metrics.
• If we don’t examine the outcomes for disabled students, we may not realize when the system is producing results that reinforce, rather than disrupt, inequities. We need lived experiences to contextualize the data.

What does our approach to data and storytelling say about our values?

Are we generating only what we are asked for, or are we asking questions and elevating voices to push the edges and make more space?

If we focus only on accommodation related data, we are likely working to maximize the effectiveness of the accommodation system.

​

If we ensure accommodation is working well, but also want to maximize the disabled student experience, we need to look beyond accommodation data to understand student experience.

Developing a culture of curiosity

How do we best capture the interest and engage the curiosity of our colleagues?

Thank you!

If you have questions about the material shared in this session please contact

Kaela Parks, Dean of Inclusive & Accessible Ed at PCC

I am happy to follow up if folks have questions - here is my book a meeting link