It’s almost that time of year when philosophers involved in teaching will begin preparing for the new semester. For some people, the tasks include writing an accessibility statement, the main purpose of which is to inform disabled students of the various provisions and services available to enable their learning. Shelley Tremain has some great reflections on accessibility statements over at Discrimination and Disadvantage:
Accessibility statements can be mechanisms that promote social justice and equality for disabled people or they can be mechanisms to constrain such social change. Faculty must begin to recognize the transformative potential of these statements, rather than continue to regard them as rudimentary university policies. Think about your accessibility statement and what it does. Search the web to find examples of the accessibility statements that experts in the area of disability and accessibility in higher education (such as disability studies scholars Jay Dolmage, Margaret Price, and Stephanie Kerschbaum, among others) use in their courses. Devote time to compose an accessibility statement that conveys to your students that each of them is valued equally. Discuss your accessibility statement and its implications and assumptions with members of your classes at the beginning of each semester and on other occasions over the course of the semester. Review and revise your statement often.
Does anyone know if accessibility statements are required in the UK? I’m UK-based and I’ve not been asked to produce one…
Read the rest of Shelley’s excellent post, and go join in the discussion here.
Feminist Philosophers 