Disability and Institutional Design
I help campuses and employers identify and redesign the systems that create barriers to disabled people belonging, staying, and succeeding.
Institutions often approach disability inclusion one accommodation at a time, addressing individual barriers without examining the systems that produce them. My work looks beyond individual accommodations to the policies, practices, and assumptions that shape how work and campus life are organized, how decisions are made, and where responsibility for access sits.
Workplace
Workplace policies and practices often reflect assumptions about how work should be performed rather than what it needs to accomplish. Those assumptions create unnecessary barriers for disabled employees and narrow the accommodations organizations consider possible.
I work with employers to redesign the policies, performance expectations, and practices that produce those barriers, and to restructure accommodation processes so they reliably identify effective accommodations.
Higher Education
Most campuses treat disability as an accommodation and compliance issue rather than a dimension of diversity reflected in institutional policy and campus life. Responsibility is concentrated in disability services and HR, while the everyday policies, practices, and routines that shape campus life for disabled students, faculty, and staff, and the ableist assumptions behind them, go largely unexamined.
I work with colleges and universities to identify and redesign those systems to improve access, strengthen belonging, and increase retention
Ways to Engage
Many organizations first encounter my work through a talk or workshop. Others come with a specific system they want examined or redesigned.
Speaking & Training
I offer invited talks and participatory workshops for employers, higher education institutions, and professional associations. Topics include structural ableism in institutional policies and practices, accommodation systems and disability retention, and disability as diversity and identity. Workshops give participants structured methods for analyzing the policies and practices they work with.
Consulting and Advisory
I work with organizations to identify where policies, practices, and underlying assumptions create unnecessary barriers for disabled people, and to redesign the systems that produce them. Engagements include leadership briefings, diagnostic reviews, and policy and systems redesign. I also contribute subject-matter expertise to policy initiatives, research projects, and partner organizations’ work.
Selected Speaking Engagements
AHEAD · NASPA · Magna Leadership in Higher Education · Pacific ADA Symposium
About
I spent 24 years as a philosophy professor before founding a practice focused on disability and institutional design. My work draws on analytical training, extensive experience inside higher education, and lived experience of disability and accommodation systems.