I often direct students to the UAL Disability Service web pages to get support. In lectures I have used UAL’s CSR strategy as a corporate example. Similarly, I could use UAL’s Disability Service web pages to illustrate how businesses should support their disabled staff . Upon reviewing the pages critically, they seem to lack a human aspect; there are no photos of staff for example. Whilst the process of gaining support seems straightforward, it could also be very daunting, particularly for students with intersectional characteristics.
The film by Christine Sun Kim introduces the idea of sound ownership and who decides what sounds are produced. It makes me think of classroom noise and its impact. After a couple of hours in a noisy classroom, my stress and tiredness levels go up, but the students may be experiencing something quite different. Sometimes students remain silent when I try to elicit responses from them. At other times, silence makes students feel uncomfortable; they would rather there was a hum to help them concentrate. I wonder if there are ways to enforce loud or quiet time within a session. Is there a comfortable noise level that we could agree upon? I could work with seminar groups at the beginning of a session to collectively decide what works for us in that space.
The conversation with Maria Oshodi in the Shades of Noir publication Disabled People: The Voice of Many is about accessibility and diversity in the arts. Oshodi has an interesting take on inclusion, stating that it is a diluted version of the radicalism it was borne out of in the 70s and 80s. She instructs artists to make work that is “relevant to us as ‘other’… that is where the originality sits, not in aping what is already out there.” This idea inspires me to reverse the notion of inclusion. Rather than creating adjustments for students to be able to participate in the dominant practice, I could suggest that the whole class tunes to methods that best suit students with disabilities.
Christine Sun Kim (2012), A Selby Film. Available at: https://vimeo.com/31083172 (Accessed: 17 July 2023)
Shades of Noir (2020) ‘Disabled People: The Voice of Many. Available at https://issuu.com/shadesofnoir/docs/disabled_people (Accessed: 17 July 2023)
UAL (2023) Disability and dyslexia. Available at: https://www.arts.ac.uk/students/student-services/disability-and-dyslexia (Accessed: 17 July 2023).
So many interesting points, Louise!
I agree that the Disability service pages lack a human aspect, and that they might be daunting to students, however I love the idea of using the page to discuss how brands can support their staff with disabilities – I’ve worked for big brands and although they might have had some form of support it wasn’t ever something that was obvious to staff, at least not in my experience.
The point about isolation and students maybe not feeling at home once they are on the course is such an important one. Considering accessibility in open days is a great point. In terms of helping students feel at home, one of my course team member has started promoting a series of student-led community building workshops, I wonder if this is something that might help?
The point on noise in classrooms and sensory overload is also so important. I teach practical sessions and I noticed more and more students bring in headphones, which they put on when they are working on self directed activities, and your post made me consider whether this might be a way students found to regulate the sensory input when working in shared spaces… I love the idea of working with students to collectively decide what works for a session, I need to look into this as well.
Thank you for your comments Mariana. Your idea about student-led community building workshops is great! I have tried to do a bit of this but maybe I haven’t worked hard enough on it. I find that these extracurricular things easily become de-prioritised. There was a wave of enthusiasm from students about setting up an events committee but that evaporated once deadlines took over. I will try again next term 🙂
I agree, I think that the Disability web pages could do with a more friendly welcoming approach, and adding staff images would be a way of doing this. However, there could be practical reasons, like keeping the pages update when staff changes occur, that may be an argument for not going down this road. Shame, if that’s the case!
Good luck with the noise level agreement! I think it is a brilliant idea, and if you can get the students to get on board, everyone will benefit, I m sure. It is so difficult to concentrate when there is a lot of noise in the background.
Thanks for your comments Lorraine. I hadn’t thought about the practical reasons for the lack of photos on UAL’s Disability pages. It might also be due to privacy/confidentiality concerns.
I am going to try the noise agreement thing next term. We are moving to the new building in Stratford so it will be a whole new scenario that I’m sure will bring challenges in terms of sensory overload!
I too noticed that when reviewing UAL’s Disability Service web pages that there was a lack of “human representation”: no photos of staff, to complement the content and make the service more personable. Especially as accessing these services could be quite daunting for service users: particularly (rightly said) for a student with intersectional characteristics.
I think that the pages would benefit from utilising photos of the staff to make the experience more user-friendly.
Thank you for your comment Michele. It’s interesting that both you and Lorraine agreed on the point about UAL’s Disability pages. I think it’s always helpful to put a face to the name but maybe there are reasons for not doing this.