Designing campuses where disability is integral to institutional design
I work with universities to examine how policies, practices, evaluation systems, and cultural and physical infrastructure shape who can participate—and to redesign them to remove barriers.
On most campuses, disability is handled primarily as a legal and medical matter—managed through accommodations—rather than examined as part of institutional design or as a dimension of campus life alongside other forms of diversity. Responsibility is concentrated in disability services and HR, while the policies, practices, and routines that structure everyday campus life are left largely unexamined.
Many of the barriers disabled students encounter are produced by institutional norms, standard operating procedures, and campus policies. These include how participation is defined and designed, how academic and administrative processes are structured, and how disability is reflected in cultural and physical infrastructure. Together, these patterns determine who can participate in academic and campus life, under what conditions, and on what terms.
The same dynamics shape outcomes for disabled faculty. Their ability to remain and succeed is structured by how roles are defined, how performance is evaluated—including tenure and promotion—and how expectations around productivity, presence, and pace are established and enforced
What I Do
I examine how policies are written and applied, how academic and administrative processes are structured, how performance is defined and evaluated, and how responsibility for access is allocated across the institution, including whether access is built into those systems as a baseline expectation rather than addressed only through accommodations.
I also examine whether disability has parity with other identities in cultural infrastructure, including how disability is represented in campus spaces, communications, and events, and whether it is treated as a visible and integrated part of campus life.
I bring 24 years of experience as a philosophy professor working on ethics and disability, including teaching and mentoring disabled students and organizing the More About Us: A Disability Visibility Campaign, focused on how disability is represented and recognized in campus life.
Nature of Engagements
Engagements are diagnostic and advisory. I do not handle individual complaints or serve as legal counsel. My role is institutional analysis and design.
How to Engage
I’m currently doing a small number of institutional reviews with universities.