Disability & Accessibility

Teaching and Working in a Time of Technological Determinism

This panel brought together students, faculty, and organizers to examine the presence of AI in campus work. Panelists discussed and explored what is at stake as AI shapes teaching, learning, and labor, surfacing dilemmas across intersecting structures of power, access, and survival.

The urgent and swift adoption of AI in higher education has focused conversations on compliance and institutional data security, overshadowing the need to contemplate this moment's historical and sociopolitical depth. We know that AI serves as a vehicle for perpetuating biases and untruths,...

Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired: Dealing with Toxic Stresses on Campus and in our Classrooms

2018 was a difficult year for many Berkeley students and faculty. At the national level, there had been an increase in hateful rhetoric and exclusionary policies directed at many identities and communities. And, on campus, we were deeply challenged by tensions around recent speaker events, as well as by increased policing, painful intergroup dynamics, and repeated instances of bias and harassment. All of this led to an increase in individual and collective stress, trauma, and anxiety, which research shows can negatively impact learning, memory, and emotion.

Understanding UC Berkeley Students and their Experiences

This event was an open dialogue, supported by campus climate data from several recent surveys. Together, the speaker and attendees considered whether the survey results support their own experiences; how the data might shift expectations of relationships with students; and what resulting efforts individually and collectively could be designed to provide an equitable and fully inclusive classroom.

Event Outline California Demographics Berkeley Undergraduate Demographics Race/Ethnicity Gender Sexuality Socioeconomic Status (SES) Disability Intersections of Race...

Beyond Accommodation: Changing the Disability Frame

Berkeley faculty, graduate student instructors, staff, and students sought to expand the dialogue around disability on college campuses, which often focuses on how we can support and accommodate individual needs and meet compliance requirements under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Participants were invited to think in creative ways about culture, structure, teaching and learning, and broader institutional transformation. Some key discussion questions included:

How can we as a campus start to look at disability from a framework of equity, belonging and social justice, rather...